


Dirty Little Sessions

by unholy_this



Series: DLS [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Collars, Forced, Gang Rape, Handcuffs, Mentions of Sexual Abuse of Minors, Panic Attacks, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Self-Harm, Slash, Vomiting, Whipping, actually there may be a plot somewhere there, also Killian gets most of it, and Ropes, but generally it's whump, oh my, this is whump without plot just so you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-12 05:58:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10483722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unholy_this/pseuds/unholy_this
Summary: Warning: this is a whump-without-plot story. It gets dirty and sick the more it goes, so read at your own risk.A gang of five random dudes kidnap Killian and Emma. They have their ways with him while they force her to watch.





	1. Chapter 1

Emma wakes up slowly. The first thing that she registers is that her head is way too warm. As she tries to breathe in, it keeps feeling harder as if the air is thin.

Suddenly, she realizes that her wrists and ankles are tied down to the chair she’s apparently sitting on. She opens her eyes and sees nothing. She begins to wriggle when she feels the canvas around her neck, making her realize a bag has been put on her head.

“Hey!” she shouts.

“She’s up,” she hears faintly.

The next thing she hears is a door creaking open, footsteps and ragged breathing. The door is closed and locked.

“Take them off,” she hears someone say.

The bag is lifted off her head and she’s blinded for a few seconds. Her blood freezes when she sees that the men around her are restraining Killian, who is also trying to focus on what’s happening. His eyes go wide when he spots her, and he looks around at the men surrounding them. There are five of them, all wearing casual dark-coloured clothes and looking menacing. As Emma looks around, she realizes they are in an apparently abandoned dance studio, the walls on her sides completely covered in mirrors. Dust has set everywhere and the windows haven’t been cleaned in some time. As she looks at them, she also realizes the studio is half-below ground.

“Who are you?” Killian says, trying to wriggle free from the three men holding him back.

“Carl Gregson, nice to meet you,” one of the two men away from him says with a smile. Killian simply looks at him confused.

“Did you really think we’d tell you who we are?” the man says, raising his eyebrows.

“What do you want?” Emma says. The cuffs holding her wrists and ankles confined are metal, stuck to the chair as if the chair was created for such a purpose.

“To have fun,” the other man, a bald, heavy-built guy, says without a pause. Emma and Killian look at him.

“Did Gold send you?” Killian says.

“Uh, we weren’t searching for _that_. Are you drug dealers or something?” the man who introduced himself as Carl says.

“We wouldn’t mind some stuff,” one of the men holding Killian says, smirking.

“Shut up,” Carl says.

Emma tries to think quickly. Those guys don’t know who they are, otherwise they would have cared if they’re rich or not. She looks at the men… they all look strong enough, as much if not stronger than Killian, the two guys in front of her and one of the guys on Killian look about mid-thirties, the other two pretty younger. She looks at Killian, who looks back at her with what she’d learned is his mask for his fear.

Her breathing suddenly gets heavy. There is only one way those men would think of as fun. And then she spots it; a few feet in front of her chair, there is a metal ring somehow pinned to the floor. It looks as if it was put there recently, not enough dust having settled on it. She looks up at the men in front of her, whose smiles have turned terrifying.

“Go on,” Carl says. She doesn’t even bother to think it’s stupid to call him that, as terror consumes her seeing the three men push Killian to the ground towards the ring. One of them sits atop him, putting weight on Killian’s back and feet, immobilizing him as Killian shouts for them to let him go. The other two carefully pull away Killian’s jacket and vest, and then they bring his arms in front of him. They handcuff his hand, then pass the other end through the metal ring and cuff it around his brace’s inner buckles, successfully handcuffing him to the floor. Killian looks over at his cuffed wrists and groans in effort to push the other man off of him. He hasn’t yet looked at the other men, focusing on the buckles of his brace. But Emma knows as well as he does that he won’t be able to undo them with his hand immobilized.

Then the man sitting atop him produces a piece of rope from his pocket and ties it around Killian’s mouth. Killian grunts as the man pulls his head up and then releases him. With one look, Emma thinks she may recognize the man tied a hunter’s bend on the rope, but she’s growing more and more shocked by the moment to notice.

Killian is breathing hard as well, and a few involuntary sounds escape his mouth with the way it’s being forced open by the rope.

“Now then,” Carl says, “it’s time.”

The hairy guy sitting on Killian stands up only for Carl to sit back on him. Killian buries his face in his arms for a moment, then looks back at Carl. Emma can see from the mirror that Killian’s eyes go wide when Carl gets out a small pair of scissors from a pocket. A soft moan leaves his mouth as he probably tries to say something.

“Don’t worry yet, I’m not going to hurt you… with _that_ ,” Carl says and starts cutting Killian’s shirt, exposing his back. Carl whistles at the sight of the old scars on Killian’s back.

“My my, you’ve had some adventures, haven’t you?” he says. The man leans forward, placing his free palm on Killian’s back. He brings his mouth close to Killian’s ear. “That your mistress?” he asks, nodding towards Emma. She can see Killian’s eyebrows pinch in anger, but he doesn’t make any sound. Carl sits up.

Emma can see Killian start shaking. He grabs his wrist with his hand and it’s only then she realizes they managed to rid him of his hook. His breathing is even more elaborate now and even with the cold he’s exposed to, Emma can see sweat appearing on his forehead.

Carl slowly cuts the whole shirt open and throws the rags away. He slides the scissors down Killian’s spine, without piercing him, until he reaches the top of his pants. Killian is still shaking.

“Guys, help me with that.”

“No!” Emma shouts without thinking, but they ignore her. Killian starts thrashing against his binds and the weight the other men put on him, but they effortlessly take off his shoes, pants and underwear, throwing them away as well.

“No, wait, _please_ ,” Emma says softly. Killian’s face is still buried in his arms, his breathing hard and loud.

“Yeah, right, as if that would help,” Carl says. Slowly, he bends forward over Killian’s back. His legs are holding Killian’s firmly on the ground as his hands push his torso down. “Now,” he says, “I’ve done this many times before, but I never really have any good words to start it with so, here it comes.”

Emma’s breath is caught and a few tears blur her vision when she sees Carl undo his zipper and expose his erect penis. A soft whimper escapes from Killian when Carl’s hands set on his back. Emma is too shocked to close her eyes.

Without warning, the man pushes himself inside Killian. It’s only Killian’s pained yell that shakes Emma back to reality and she closes her eyes. This sight, oh God, why are they doing this…

She doesn’t really know if it’s better to keep her eyes closed, as the sounds their bodies make are enough to let her know exactly what’s happening. And Killian’s grunts and whimpers are growing stronger…

“Hey, miss,” she hears Carl’s breathy voice say. She doesn’t respond.

“Open your eyes.”

_What?_

Emma simply shakes her head, the movement causing a tear to slip down her cheek.

“Look at him. I want you to look at him,” he adds.

“No,” Emma says softly.

“The less you look at him, the more I’m going to hurt him.”

Emma’s eyes snap open at that. The vision is even more terrifying than what she expected, but his words haunt her. He’s going to do what?

Slowly, Killian raises his head and looks at her. He shakes his head only a little, but enough for her to see. Emma looks back at Carl, trying and failing to ignore the part where he’s inside him. She can already see blood there.

“Keep looking at him and I promise, I won’t hurt him that much,” he says, panting, but smiling wickedly all the same.

A quick flash of fury races through Emma. She wants to feel for her magic to break herself free and blast everyone else except Killian away from there, but they’re still somewhere around New York and her magic won’t do anything. The flash burns out as Killian shakes his head again and moans negative.

Then Carl pushes himself down again, taking Killian by surprise and making him whimper, but only so. He keeps going and going, thrashing down on him as the men around him watch, but Killian’s grunts have lessened and softened.

“Good girl, keep watching,” Carl says.

She does.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed, she’s sure it’s at least many very long minutes, based on how many tears ran down her face and went dry, but finally, _finally_ , Carl grunts with pleasure and pulls himself out.

Emma is horrified to see blood on his member. He doesn’t even bother to dress up as he pats Killian on the back and stands up. Killian immediately rolls to his side, as much as his restrained wrists allow and bends his knees. Still panting, he looks up at Carl with such hatred that the man freezes for a moment. It’s very short, but she sees it. If she wasn’t frozen in shock herself she would think how Carl has no idea who he messed up with, but all she thinks of right now is running to Killian’s aid.

Carl simply scoffs and beckons the other guys towards the exit. One of them reaches Emma, and she instinctively flinches before he simply puts a key in a small keyhole under her wrist, releasing it. He leaves the key in the keyhole and exits quickly before Emma manages to pull the key free. Quickly, she tests it on the keyhole under her other wrist and it opens free as well. She releases her ankles and finally runs to Killian.

His eyes are closed and he’s panting, but he flinches a little when she reaches him.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” He opens his eyes and she nearly cries with the pain in them.

She can’t bear to keep looking at him, bloody and exposed like that, so she takes off her coat, which the others didn’t bother taking off even after taking her cell phone, and she covers his torso, middle and hips with it. He could use the warmth anyway. Then she walks around him and checks the rope. It is indeed a hunter’s bend, and for a moment she’s grateful for all the lessons Killian gave her, as she easily unties the rope. Killian coughs hard as the rope leaves his mouth, spit dripping down to the floor. He’s closed his eyes again, trying to control his breathing.

Then Emma goes for the handcuffs. That key they didn’t leave behind, and she can’t untie the buckle they’ve cuffed, so she starts unbuckling the whole harness, starting from the top on Killian’s arm. She finishes, releasing his left arm, and even with his hand still trapped, he can at least rest his other arm as he pulls it down towards his torso. His eyes are still closed.

“Killian…” Emma tries.

He moans softly.

“Is it okay if I touch you? I mean- your face?”

He seems to think for a moment, his breathing slower but still heavy, and then he nods.

She obliges and softly starts caressing his cheek. Her heart breaks when she feels him flinch a little at the touch and force himself to relax. He swallows hard and furrows his brows. Finally, he opens his eyes. Not for long, however, since he’s facing the double mirror and even with Emma between them, he still gets a glimpse of his bare legs and he shuts them close again.

Emma doesn’t know what to say. She’s read about it, had seen victims of… that, before, but now she feels a cold seep to her very bones with what she had to experience. And she knows it’s only way harder for him, but she finds herself at a loss of words. So she simply reaches with her other hand and takes his in hers. She bites her bottom lip when she sees his wrist already having gone red from the metal rubbing on it, but she simply caresses his hand without a word.

Suddenly, Killian starts whimpering softly. His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes shut, he curls in on himself and squeezes her hand.

“Don’t look at me again,” he whispers between ragged breaths.

“What?” she manages, voice shaking.

“Please, if he tells you to look at me…”

“He was going to hurt you- more than he already was.”

Killian lets out a whimper and relaxes his grip, not letting go yet.

“I can handle it.”

“Killian!” Emma cries. “Come on! What the hell is more important?” Her voice comes out weak, and tears start running down her cheeks again.

Killian doesn’t say anything, just pushes his face into the ground as if trying to disappear.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… I don’t know, Killian.” She simply leans in a little and caresses his cheek with her knuckles. She sees his shoulders shake a little, and barely hears the sobs he tries to silence.

“Please… don’t… just don’t do it…”

Emma sighs. If it’s all she can do to give him some comfort right now, she’ll do it.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

With nothing else to do but sit and wait, she lies down next to him, one hand holding his while the other caresses his face.

He’s still shaking, and she could swear she shakes a little too as she thinks the others were just getting started.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes a long time, but Killian relaxes completely. His breathing has gone back to normal, his trembling has stopped, and finally Emma stands up and looks around the room.

The part of the floor where they’re lying has been swept recently, judging by the dust still gathered at the corners. The mirrors and the windows haven’t been cleaned in quite some time, but as she approaches them, the windows look nailed shut. As a result, the room smells rusty and filthy. In one of the corners, there is a round plastic basin which has seen better days. She dares to lean in and smell it, and she winces back at the mere smell of old feces and urine, fear settling in.

They intend on keeping them there long enough to need to use this basin.

She lets out a shaky breath and inspects the mirror. It looks thin enough to break with a kick but thick enough for a shard of it to be used as a weapon. As she touches the mirror, her fingertips gathering some of the dust, she spots a camera on the reflection.

She whips her head towards the respective corner. Indeed, a camera is pinned on it, little red lights indicating it’s operating right now. She approaches it and looks directly into it.

“You’re sick!” she shouts suddenly, scaring Killian.

He whimpers a little and turns towards her. She turns back and walks to him, bending down to stay closer and not impose a threat to his subconscious.

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” she says.

He closes his eyes and swallows. “Can you help me sit up?” he asks.

Emma raises her eyebrows. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

The stubborn man in front of her nods, even as his eyebrows furrow a little. He pushes his side off the ground with the help of his stump, and Emma grabs his shoulder and helps him up.

He winces and bites his bottom lip as he finally sits up straight. Emma rubs his shoulders, feeling completely helpless. He’s gasping, his face still a mask of pain, but he tries to calm down.

“Killian…”

“Don’t,” he stops her. “Please.”

He says it in such a way she can’t help humoring him. He needs to feel like he’s still in control, somehow. He’s hurting but at least it’s helping, if only a little.

“So, how are we gonna get out of here?” he asks casually.

Emma can’t help snorting. She leans in to whisper to him, but he flinches behind a little. She looks at him half-confused, half-upset, and he leans back to listen to her.

“There’s a camera here. I don’t know if they can hear us, but we could probably improvise with what we’ve got.”

Killian nods, clenching his jaw. “What can we do for that?” he says, pointing towards the cuff at his wrist.

Emma looks. The ring keeping the handcuff pinned to the ground is stuck on a metal board, which is nailed on the floor with thick nails.

“I don’t think I can remove this thing with my bare hands,” she says as she examines it. Then she looks at his handcuffs. Heavier and more elaborate than the ones she’s used to using and breaking out of. And without his hook, it may prove almost impossible to break them open.

“Do you think we could somehow… cut the buckle the cuff is attached to?”

“I don’t know. We would need a really sharp blade.”

“A shard from a broken mirror?” she proposes.

Killian looks up at the mirror in front of him. “We’ll probably cut our palms first, but perhaps it’s worth a try.”

Emma nods. She stands up and walks to the mirror. Taking a deep breath, she slams the heel of her boot right through the mirror, breaking a few pieces off of it. She carefully pries a big piece off and walks back to Killian, terror starting to sink in as she knows they’re probably watching them right now.

She holds the piece like a key and tries to saw through the leather without any success. The shard is not sharp enough to cut it though, and Emma starts despairing.

“Stop it, love,” Killian tries.

“No, we have to get-”

“Stop it, you’ll cut yourself.” He doesn’t even try to reach her, his stump hidden under the coat covering his crotch.

“We’ll have to do something,” she whispers frantically.

“As you said, you can use it as a weapon. Hold on to it and when they come for you, lunge.”

She turns to him.

“At least you can search to find the keys to the handcuffs,” he adds.

Emma sighs deeply and sits back on her heels. It was getting darker outside, but all this time she couldn’t hear anything, no cars or any pedestrians passing by outside.

Then she hears bolts on the door opening, and she immediately takes position, ready to stab whomever she finds first.

But the man who enters the room is faster, and grabs her wrists with his big hands. Another man grabs her from behind and lifts her up. Emma starts kicking and screaming at them, but they bring her back to the chair, where with the help of a third man they tie her back down. One of them easily takes the shard from her hand and examines it.

“Nice try,” he comments.

The other two men - Carl and the bald guy - enter the room as well.

“Yeah, as you noticed, sweetheart, we have a camera set in here. A camera that also records audio, even of lower volume,” Carl says and smiles at her.

Emma struggles against her bindings and looks at him fiercely.

“Also, even if you managed to destroy this poor disabled man’s”- he goes to pet Killian’s hair as he says that, but Killian pulls away angrily - “prosthetic, we would have stopped you anyway,” he continues and nods towards one of the younger men, who lifts up his jacket, revealing the gun half-tucked into his trousers.

“That supposed to scare us?” Killian says without missing a beat. His voice sounds strong.

“Oh, come on. We were watching you. We know you cried like a hurt puppy after we left.”

“I’ve hurt people for less,” Killian hisses.

Carl raises his eyebrows in interest. “Good to know,” he replies.

But as he kneels down towards him, Killian barely manages to hold himself in place and not flinch back in terror. Carl beckons to his men and they walk towards him. Carl takes the coat and throws it away, leaving Killian completely exposed again. Killian tries to scoot away, but one man pushes him down, and two more take his arm and tie the harness around it again, however this time with haste and carelessness, and probably tighter that they should have. They step back as Killian tries to bite at their hands.

Carl scoots a little to the side, so that he’s a few inches in front of the metal ring, the mirror at his back, and sits down, legs spread in front of him.

“You have fight, I’ll give you that.”

Killian shoots daggers at him.

“We’re going to have so much fun with you,” he adds and his smile sends a shiver down Emma’s spine.

Right where he is, Carl opens his zipper again, letting his flaccid member out, his legs still open.

“Come over here,” he tells Killian.

Killian simply stares at him furiously.

Carl waits two seconds, then looks at the man who picked up the mirror shard. He walks behind Emma, grabs her hair and pulls her head back. He places the shard on her neck, close enough to cut her with one swift move.

“It may not do much on a leather strap, but I can assure you that it will cut wonderfully through skin,” Carl says, turning back towards Killian.

Emma looks at both of them. Killian looks furious, but she can see the submission slowly appear on his face. Carl smiles at that.

“Good. Now come over here,” he says.

Killian struggles to get on his knees, as his handcuffed wrists allow little movement. At the sight of his bloody behind, Emma twitches and turns away, though all the mirrors make it near impossible to avoid the sight. Killian crawls to the other man, who grabs his penis and starts rubbing. It doesn’t take long for it to erect, and Killian looks at the scene in disgust.

Carl gives him a relaxed, sadistic smile. He lets go of his member and leans back on his hands, his hip slightly raised. He nods at Killian. He reaches forward, but Carl is perfectly positioned so far that Killian has to stretch a little, the ring that holds his wrists down is now between his knees.

“And don’t try anything stupid,” he says and beckons towards Emma. Killian closes his eyes and, slowly, bends down, down, his breathing erratic as his face reaches the other man’s erection.

Emma doesn’t dare look. Her breathing no less hard, she closes her eyes, but squeezes them shut as the sounds start. A few whines escape her in her despair to mute the sound and erase it from her memory. Then Carl speaks.

“Look at him, miss,” his breathing is hard too, but for a whole different reason.

Emma doesn’t look. She promised Killian-

Suddenly Killian groans painfully. She doesn’t want to look, she can’t look-

The groan gets louder as Killian’s mouth opens free. The groan turns into almost a whimper, as if he’s struggling to escape something…

And then his mouth is full again. Emma opens her eyes. She doesn’t know what happened, she only sees Killian bent over Carl’s crotch, his mouth around his penis.

_Oh God…_

She tries to fight the nausea clawing up in her, she swallows and swallows, and keeps looking.

“Oh,” Carl pants. His face is one of pure pleasure. “And he begged you to not look at him… you must care so much for him to not want my bollocks all over his face.” He lifts his hand and brushes his fingers through Killian’s hair. Killian makes a sound and tries to shake the hand off of him, but Carl grabs his hair tight, now completely controlling Killian’s moves.

Tears are already running down Emma’s face. The other man is still behind her, his grip on her hair loosened but the shard still on her neck.

She should stop looking. That’s all Killian asked…

Her blood freezes in her veins when she sees the bald man standing behind Killian undo his zipper as well, his penis already erect.

“No…” she whispers.

Before she can react further, the man silently kneels behind Killian, his view to the mirror probably obstructed by Carl’s hand. He doesn’t know what’s…

“No!” Emma shouts.

She closes her eyes. Killian’s bloodcurling scream causes thick tears to spill from her eyes. She starts sobbing.

“Look at him!” someone says above Killian’s screams and Carl’s groans.

No, no, she won’t…

Even if she knows those sounds will haunt her forever.

It keeps going and going, the two men moaning in pleasure as Killian whimpers shakily and Emma sobs. She starts shaking in her chair, head bowed down and her eyes still closed.

“Look at him, you bitch! Or are his screams making you wet?”

She ignores them. She ignores the other men’s laughs and ignores the sounds Carl makes as he reaches his climax and tries desperately to ignore Killian’s broken wails.

Slowly, almost every sound stops. Carl makes one final sound, a shivering breath and a moan, and then Emma hears Killian make a strangled sound.

Carl moans again. “Be a good boy. Swallow it,” he says.

Silence. Emma could swear she can hear Killian swallow, but she wishes she couldn’t.

“Good boy,” Carl says.

Emma hears a movement, and then Killian’s ragged breathing and whimpering.

She opens her eyes.

Carl is standing in front of Killian, fully dressed, as the other man… no. She won’t look there. Killian is looking down, tears and mucus on his face.

The man behind him starts going again, but Emma is frozen in shock to close her eyes again. Killian looks as if he’s blacked out, but he suddenly gasps, choking.

“He’s gonna throw up,” one of the younger men says.

“Oh, no,” Carl says. “After all this work you’re just gonna throw it up?” Mock pity colors his voice. He tsks and keeps looking at him.

Killian starts looking more and more sick by the minute. It’s as if the jerking movements from behind are adding to his nausea, until he finally reaches over and retches.

Carl carefully avoids getting his shoes dirty as Killian vomits half-digested food and semen. He keeps going and going in the rhythm of the other man’s movements. The man grunts in pleasure as Killian whimpers softly between bouts. Carl lifts his foot and pushes Killian’s head down with it, and there’s little Killian can do to stop him, so he’s pushed face down into his own vomit as he keeps emptying his stomach. He stops, finally, but the man is still moving inside him and the movement causes him to keep splashing in the fluids he just threw up. When he looks like he can barely breathe, Emma finally finds the strength to close her eyes.

She never hated herself more.

She can still hear them, Killian’s broken whimpers, the other man groaning, the sound of the liquids as Killian’s face splashes in them.

Finally, she hears the man shudder and sigh, and the sound of his penis coming out. When she hears the zip close, she opens her eyes again.

Killian is now collapsed forward, gasping for air with his eyes closed. The air smells horrible and it’s all Emma can do to keep her own vomit in.

Slowly, the men leave. One stays behind to undo Emma’s cuff on her wrist and follows the others. Without even thinking, Emma releases her other limbs and walks towards Killian’s slumped form, her legs shaking.

She crouches down beside him and tears fill her eyes when she gets a closer look. His lips are swollen, they even look almost bruised, vomit and semen are stuck in his hair and his wrist is bleeding.

He’s still gasping and heaving, but nothing comes out.

She tries to touch him to help him lie on his side, but he cries out once she makes contact, the sound half-gurgled as his mouth is still buried in his vomit.

“I’m sorry, I’m sor- Killian, it’s me, Emma,” she tries, her voice broken, sobs starting to overcome her again.

Killian whimpers.

“I just want to help you lie down, so that… so I can move you from… here, I- uh, I just… just, it’s okay, alright?”

She goes to touch him, but he flinches desperately and ends up falling on his left side on his own.

This seems to bring him back to reality as he keeps whimpering between gasps. He opens his eyes, and searches for her.

It’s killing her, the way he looks at her. The pain and the despair… the disgust he thinks she’ll feel.

She suddenly catches a glimpse of his left arm. The men tied the harness so tight around it it’s started bruising. She points at it with her finger.

“Just let me help you get that off, okay? Then you’ll be able to move a little.”

Killian stretches his neck backwards, trying to remove his face from the vomit, and shifts so that his left arm is free.

She makes quick work and removes it, and new tears spill at the sight of his bruises.

“Okay now, let me help you-”

“No!” he cries, and tries to sit up.

“Killian…”

“Please, just…” his voice is ragged and breathy. He supports himself on his arms and starts twisting around the ring, so that he’s as far away from the vomit as possible. He lies down facing the mirror, and Emma realizes too late she should have covered him first. As he settles, he opens his eyes and sees his whole body in the double mirror. The vomit, the blood, the bruises…

“Oh, gods,” he whines and almost heaves again, but Emma knows he has nothing left. So he lies back down, eyes closed, and cries.

Almost paralyzed from the shock, Emma manages to get her coat back and covers his sensitive parts as he sobs on the floor. She looks around. The men took all of Killian’s clothes the first time around, but they left the rags of his shirt. So she picks them up and sits down by Killian’s head.

“Killian…”

He doesn’t respond, he just sobs.

“I just want to wipe your face clean, I promise-”

Killian curls in on himself. “N- no,” he manages, brokenly.

“It’s okay, I just want to clean it…”

“No, no, please…” he can only whisper.

“I know, I know it’s hard, I just want… I just want to help you feel better. I’m here. I’m still here.”

He doesn’t move. He looks ashamed.

“Please, Killian, for me,” she begs.

“I don’t…” he says. She waits. “I don’t want you to… touch me like… that.”

“I just want to help you,” she says and sobs. “Trust me.”

“I- I do, but… I’m… I don’t want you to…”

“It’s okay, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have memories of changing diapers, you know.”

It’s unbelievable, but this makes Killian’s lips twitch up a little. “Please, let me.”

He shivers once, swallows hard and nods. He lets her clean his face and hair as much as she can, even if he’s flinching away in every place her fingers touch him. She cries as she does, she’s never before felt so desperate, so helpless.

“Thank you,” he manages when she finishes.

Her hands got dirty, at the end. Her body is shaking but it’s all made worse by her fatigue. It can’t be more than half a day since they took them but all she wants to do is collapse, wake up and realize it was all a horrible nightmare that will simply haunt her for weeks and not years.

Killian is shaking too. He doesn’t even react when she lifts his head with her hands and lets it rest on her lap, clean clothes be damned at this point. After a few shaky breaths, she lies down as well, head looking sideways so that she can check on Killian anytime through the mirror.

Thoughts heavy, body shaking, images she knows will barely allow her to sleep, she closes her eyes and gives in to her exhaustion.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the plot invasion here! I just have to make things make a little more sense… and besides there’s still enough angst until we get to the juicy part!

They both startle awake when they hear someone unlocking the door. It’s too early, Emma thinks, they barely had time to rest…

She looks up and sees that the door opens only slightly, and a hand holding a plastic bag appears through it. The man leaves the bag on the floor and promptly closes the door, locking it again.

Killian has started trembling a little, and Emma’s breathing is still fast from the scare. He tries to bury his face in her lap, curling in on himself as much as his restrained hand allows, and Emma lets him.

“It’s okay, they’re not here yet. They just left something for us.”

Killian doesn’t respond.

“Killian, I’m going to touch your shoulder, is that okay?”

After a few shaky breaths, he nods. She gently places her hand on his shoulder and rubs circles on it with her thumb. That seems to make him relax a little.

Emma realizes a pleasant scent is filling the room - something containing beef and probably french fries.

“I think they brought us food,” she says softly.

He opens his eyes with a soft sob and tries to look towards the door.

“I’m going to go get it, okay? I’ll have to let your head off my lap.”

He closes his eyes again, and nods.

“Okay,” he croaks.

With careful movements, she takes his head in her hands and slowly lets it rest on the floor. Her body is sore from sleeping on the floor, but she raises and almost runs to the door. As she reaches it, she examines it for the first time - it looks to be made out of solid metal, with heavy hinges and a massive locking system. She won’t be breaking out of this soon.

She picks up the bag and as she walks back to Killian, she can see there are two small water bottles and two rectangular paper boxes inside. She sits back next to him.

“There’s water here as well,” she says. She knows there’s no way he won’t be needing it after what he just went through. Weakly, he tries to sit up.

“Wait, let me-” she offers, but he cuts her off with a shake of his head. He winces greatly as he sits, his arms trembling from the tension of half-keeping him up. He lets out a short moan.

“Hey,” Emma tries and touches his shoulder. Instinctively, he flinches away and almost falls back down because of the swift movement. Leaning on his ankles and forearms, he tries to get his breathing under control again.

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispers. The worse he’s getting the more helpless she feels. Why didn’t she let him know she was going to touch him?

She doesn’t offer to help again, knowing that his stubbornness won’t let him accept her help in such a basic thing as sitting up. Finally, slowly, he manages to sit up, hissing and scrunching his eyebrows from the pain.

He looks back at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” she says and opens one of the water bottles. She brings it to his lips and carefully lifts it up. On the first sip, he gently pushes it away, turns on his side and spits the water out. He takes a few breaths, then turns around, drinks a little more and spits it out again. Emma worries that he’ll use up all of the water for that, even if he really needs to clean his mouth right now, but then he turns and drinks normally, drinking the whole bottle at once. He sighs in contempt when it’s done.

Emma feels a little thirsty herself, but she needs to help him eat first. She opens the boxes, and inside of each there is one hamburger with french fries. It doesn’t look really tasty but it’s all they have, and Killian especially needs it after vomiting everything there was in his stomach - and it’s already been hours since they last ate.

Her hands are anything but clean, so she tries to rub them on the inside of her top, picks up one hamburger and brings it to Killian’s lips. He shakes his head and looks down.

“Are you still nauseous?” she asks him, worried.

“No, no, and I’m starving, actually.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I want to eat it on my own,” he says almost sheepishly.

Emma looks down at his hand. If he wanted to eat on his own, he would have to crouch and eat like a fucking dog.

“It’s okay-” she starts.

“No,” he interrupts her and shakes his head.

She sighs, knowing that she won’t be able to talk him out of this. His tone was abrupt, but his face is soft and… pleading.

It kills her that him refusing the help she offers seems one of the few things that’s keeping him sane right now. She drops her gaze and hands over the hamburger, pushing over the box with the fries so that it’s under his hand.

He nods in thanks and leans over to eat. Her heart breaks at the sight, as the movement exposes his bloody rear and has him balancing himself on his bad arm. He makes a few pained sounds but finally starts eating.

Desperate to take her mind off, she opens her own bottle and drinks half the water in it. Damn it she needed that. She then picks up her burger and stats eating.

On his part a few sounds are heard but mostly they eat in silence. The burger is completely tasteless and the fries are cold but at least it’s food. She frowns as she realizes they’ll have to use that basin for their needs at some point. It’s only then that she wonders if Killian will have any trouble with that.

With a heavy heart, she keeps eating and they finish their meals. Killian doesn’t sit up after finishing, he merely leans towards her and she prepares her lap so he can rest his head on it again. Without a word, he settles into the most comfortable position he can get and falls asleep almost immediately.

Emma can’t tell what time it is, she can only see that outside is dark and the room is slightly illuminated by streetlights. She feels a little rested, so she decides to stay up and look after Killian.

She has no idea, however, what exactly to do. She won’t be able to defend him if they come all at once again; she can’t heal him with her magic not working here; she can’t even break him out of his handcuffs. She shivers as she thinks the only thing she might be able to do is comfort him when the nightmares come.

After about an hour, she lies back down to rest her back; even that slight movement upsets Killian, who whines in his sleep and huddles further into her. She whispers words of comfort to him, that she’s there, still with him, and he relaxes. At least, she thinks, his subconscious is appreciating that comfort still. But she doesn’t know how long that will last, with what they keep doing to him. Or what they may do next.

She only manages to soothe three nightmares; at the fourth he wakes up in shock and screams, trying to get away, the handcuff making his wrist bleed again.

“Shh, Killian, I’m here! Look at me!” She doesn’t dare to use the words “it’s okay”. Because this is anything but okay.

Killian looks at her in tears. He’s stopped moving but he’s no less terrified.

After a full minute, she manages to help him control his breathing and find his bearings. He collapses on the floor, exhausted from the interrupted sleep, the shock of the nightmare, the hellish day he had to endure.

But he doesn’t sleep.

Emma thinks she can see the first rays of sunlight in what little she can see from the sky. She wonders when they’ll come back. She turns her attention back to Killian when she sees him struggle to sit up, once again refusing her help. He doesn’t complain as much this time, though she knows he’s not in any less pain than before. She sees him look silently at his harness and brace.

“I know you’ll hate it,” she starts, but he doesn’t turn towards her, “but I think it would be a good idea if I put that on for you now.”

This time he turns. The bruises on his left arm are the living proof that all the men cared about was securing him to the floor. They may come back any moment now, and it would be better if she was the one to put it on with care. He sighs and closes his eyes. She’s not going to pressure him, because it’s either his arm getting more bruised, or him being confined to the floor for longer than he has to. And she’s got the terrible idea that after the men see that, they may postpone coming back just to spite her.

She swallows hard as she realizes he would definitely choose the first option. But he surprises her as he nods, and whispers “Okay”. That’s when he finally opens his eyes.

She helps him move to a position where having his arms confined won’t hurt him, and starts to put the harness on. He has his head slightly turned from the scene, as if it’s making him sick - it probably is, a little - but she tries to ignore it and keeps tying the buckles together. She was mostly an expert in putting it off, so it takes her a little more time than necessary to finish.

When she’s done, he simply stays there silent, clenching his jaw and looking nowhere. Emma reaches and slowly gets hold of his hand in hers.

They only stay there for a few minutes until the bolts at the door are being unlocked again. Killian takes a quick breath and his hand starts trembling, and all Emma can do is squeeze it in an effort to bring him back to reality.

The door opens and slowly, all five of them enter the room. They’re wearing different clothes from yesterday and two of them look sleepy. Carl steps forward.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, hands in his pockets and stance relaxed.

“Go to hell,” Killian says, quietly.

“Guess that’s a no,” Carl says and turns back to his men, all of them smirking.

Killian lets go of Emma’s hand and stays focused on Carl.

“Just get on with it,” he says, determined, but Emma sees how hard he’s clenching his jaw.

“Such eagerness.” Carl raises his eyebrows. “Well I guess I should oblige, right?” And with that, he beckons at his men, who walk over to Emma loomingly. For one moment, before she’s taken away, Emma can see Killian swallowing hard and, if she’s being honest, she thinks she hears a soft wail coming from him at her being taken away.

However, she’s not brought back to the chair. As she struggles against the men’s grip, the bald guy reaches her from behind and handcuffs her wrists behind her back.

“Wait,” Killian says.

“Wait, what are you-” Emma can’t finish her sentence as the men push her to the mirror, the two holding her in place as the third pushes her pants and underwear down to her ankles.

“No! Stop!” Killian shouts, but Emma can barely hear him. She freezes against the mirror, and slides down to the floor as the men push her down and hold her there.

This can’t be happening.

She has to get out of there, she has to _run_ …

“Wait! Wait…”

Her body starts shaking with the need to run away, but she’s too frozen in shock and fear and the men hold her there steady and she can’t do anything…

She raises her head and looks at the mirror. Killian is frantically trying to escape his handcuffs and run to her.

“Stop it,” he says, but he only looks at Emma. She doesn’t think she’s seen him so terrified before.

_Breathe_ , _Emma. In and out._

“Right,” Carl says and turns to Killian, “your turn.” He points at her.

Killian’s eyes go wide. He opens his mouth, and his lower lip moves as he thinks of something to say, but he just closes it, shakes his head, and says, “No.”

Carl shrugs. “Fine,” he says and nods at the bald guy, who immediately starts walking towards Emma and goes to unzip his pants. Emma whimpers involuntarily.

“No! No, no, wait!” Killian shouts. “Wait!” he almost screams, and the bald guy stops and looks at him.

“Don’t do this,” Killian says, looking back at Carl.

“Well you know, it’s either you or him.” His tone is so nonchalant and normal it creeps the life out of Emma.

Emma looks at the mirror. Killian is barely managing a mask of anger, with his lower lip trembling a little.

“No, please. Just do whatever you want to me, and let her go,” Killian says and shakes his head.

“But you see, pal,” Carl says matter-of-factly, almost as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “ _this_ is what we want to do to you.” He smiles simply, almost sympathetically at the oblivious man in front of him.

Killian looks at him, and Emma can see that his breath catches. He looks around, at Emma, at the bald guy, at Emma again.

Emma turns her gaze down for a moment. She contemplates her possibilities. It’s either forced sex with her boyfriend while a gang of rapists watch with glee, or being assaulted by the man behind her. Like Killian was. She bites her lip, closes her eyes, and takes two breaths. Then she looks up. Killian is looking at her devastated, but as he sees her look at him, he turns his gaze down and nods.

“Hmm? Yes what?” Carl says.

“I’ll do it,” Killian whispers. His gaze is still down.

“Killian…” Emma tries, but he simply squeezes his eyes shut. He drops his head further and raises his hand, motioning at the handcuffs.

With a deep, satisfied exhale, Carl walks to him and bends down. He doesn’t even come close to him but Emma can see Killian instinctively flinch away and his lip start trembling. Carl opens the handcuffs and immediately gets hold of Killian’s hand, passes the free end through the ring, then handcuffs his hand again and steps away.

Emma can see all five men staring down at him, waiting for his next move. Killian is still looking down, his hand balled into a fist on his lap. After a few short breaths, he raises his gaze a little, still not looking at Emma, and tries to stand.

His legs shake and only hold him up for a second before he collapses on his knees, barely stopping his torso from hitting the floor as well with his one hand. A few of the men laugh at his predicament. Killian ignores them and starts crawling towards her, face still down.

Emma’s panic has subsided a bit now, she’s still shaking a little but at least she knows that the worst part will be the humiliation - which will not be easy by any means, but at least it’s something more manageable than the alternative. She keeps looking at Killian, practically _begging_ him with her eyes to look at her. He’s only going to make it worse if he doesn’t look at her.

“Killian…” she says again, softly.

He doesn’t respond. He reaches her and positions himself between her legs. His eyes still closed, Emma can see him almost have a panic attack. He bites his lip and breathes hard, shoulders shaking from the tension.

“Killian, look at me,” she whispers. A few tears well up in her eyes.

Killian simply shakes his head and forces himself to relax. One, two breaths later, he moves closer and raises his hand. He almost stops mid-way, but he simply scrunches his eyebrows, almost completely squeezing his eyes closed and keeps going, until she feels a finger entering her.

She can’t bite back the moan. She closes her eyes and leans on her forehead, the touch immediately beginning to arouse her, and she feels so sick she can feel that way, under those circumstances. Killian’s finger inside her is shaking, and she tries to find the composure to open her eyes and look back up at him.

“I told you they’d fucked before,” Carl says. Emma opens her eyes and sees him raise his eyebrows at someone, then offering his hand and taking a dollar bill from one of the younger men.

The finger inside her starts rubbing and sliding further, and she bites her tongue to keep the moan from escaping her throat. She feels a second finger entering her, but she feels ready, so she thrusts her hips backwards.

Someone whistles.

Killian’s fingers shakily exit her. She looks back at him. Blood has rushed to his face and she swears she can see the track of a tear on his cheek, and it suddenly hits her how _repulsed_ he is by what he’s doing. Slowly, he raises to his knees, his whole body trembling.

He’s still not looking at her. His eyes closed, he takes a few short breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. His face is so pained that she can feel her heart breaking in two.

Slowly, steadily, she feels his hard member entering her.

One moan escapes her. She bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut. While the sensation is by no means unpleasant, she feels sick that she’s partly enjoying it… She tries to escape away with her mind. Killian starts thrusting on a steady rhythm.

“Holy shit,” someone whispers, then opens his zip and starts breathing heavily.

_Oh God..._

Killian’s thrusts slow down, but he keeps going. He makes no sound, and Emma is terrified to look up at him.

The sounds of the other man masturbating to them are still heard around.

“Hurt her,” Carl says.

Killian simply huffs in refusal. His breath has gone faster despite himself.

“ _Hurt_ her, now,” he repeats.

“No,” Killian breathes, and keeps going.

Suddenly, she hears the sound of leather hitting on skin, and Killian grunting in pain.

“Hurt her! Make her feel you hard!”

Emma opens her eyes. A riding crop has appeared on Carl’s hand, ready to strike again.

It does.

This time Killian is more prepared, so he manages to bite back his pained grunt.

“Hurt her!” Carl simply says again, a wicked smile on his face.

Killian shakes his head, and another strike lands on his back.

It keeps going, Carl striking him and asking him to hurt her, and Killian refusing him. And the crop hitting him, until she feels him going softer inside her and sees his face twisted in pain.

“Oh, no, don’t you give up now!” one of the men watching from the side says.

“Finish, pal. Inside her or outside her, I don’t fucking care, just finish. Or I’ll have my man do her for you.” His tone sends chills down Emma’s spine.

Squeezing her eyes shut, and begging he’ll forgive her, she thrusts her hips towards him. Killian whimpers, but the friction livens him up. Some of the men cheer.

Carl keeps telling him to hurt her, Killian refuses, the crop strikes. Emma keeps thrusting back.

It feels like an eternity passes, but finally, Killian grunts, for the first time not in pain, and pulls out. Emma can hear the sound of liquid hitting the floor. Her eyes still closed, she leans on her forehead and tries to steady her breathing. Some of the men laugh.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Carl asks, and she can hear Killian breath in loudly. She opens her eyes, and sees Carl’s hand squeezing Killian’s shoulder, which is shaking.

“But just because you didn’t listen to me…” he takes one step back and hits him with the crop again. A tiny, almost imperceptible whimper escapes Killian and he bends forward, curling in on himself.

She doesn’t care about the other men, about her exposed body, all she wants is to turn around and wrap him in her arms… if he lets her.

The men start to leave. One of the young ones, a muscular guy with sandy blonde hair and sideburns, is left last and bends over next to them, leaving a set of keys on the floor, then rushes outside.

She realizes Killian hasn’t registered the move. He remained curled over, shoulders shaking.

“Killian…” she starts. He just shakes his lowered head.

“Killian, the keys,” she says.

His head jerks up. He spots the set of keys and slowly, weakly, falls on all four and starts crawling towards the keys. He tries to pick up the tiny keys with his trembling fingers. It takes him a few seconds, but he makes it. He crawls back to her and tries to open the handcuffs. The keys slip from his fingers a few times, but eventually he manages to open Emma’s handcuffs free. Immediately, Emma turns and… manages to hold herself back when she sees Killian’s devastated face. His lip bleeding from being bit down on, tears on his cheeks, she slowly, _slowly_ , brings her hands towards his shoulders.

“I’m going to touch you, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for him to nod. His head is shaking from the sobs too much for her to see a nod. She puts her hands on his shoulders and squeezes softly.

“Killian… look at me, please.”

He doesn’t.

She pulls him forward, only slightly, but it’s enough to send him collapsing in her arms. She only wraps her hands around his shoulders, trying to avoid the welts - she can see the mess that is his back from the mirror, and it makes her eyes water - but she keeps him there, steady.

He cries. With loud, gut-wrenching sobs, his whole body shaking and tears falling on her shoulder, he cries and cries. She lets him.

Both of them forget her state of undress, until Killian pulls away shakily, head still bowed down.

“Oh bloody hell,” he whispers.

Emma pulls on her clothes and then picks up the fallen handcuff keys. She tries to open Killian’s cuffs as well, but the key won’t match.

The wounds on his wrist look better, they never were big to begin with but at least they seem to have closed.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he whispers.

“There’s nothing to feel sorry about.”

“It was my fault-”

‘No, no, we’re not doing this,” she interrupts him, shaking her head.

“It was me they wanted to hurt and they used you for that,” his voice is so soft, so broken, that it brings more tears to her eyes.

“It is _not_ your fault,” she says and raises her hand to touch his cheek, but he pulls away before she makes contact. “And I’ll… I’ll get over this,” she adds anyway.

She doesn’t know if _he_ will, however.

She moves her hand slowly towards the top of his harness.

“Would you like me to take it off?” she asks. Now that he’s off the ring, it will be the first time in almost a day he’ll have almost complete freedom of movement. He nods, but his face shows shame.

She opens the buckles and Killian sighs as he finally moves his right arm free. The harness is still hanging from the cuff on his wrist but that’s minor compared to him being handcuffed to the floor.

She reaches to touch his shoulder, but he pulls away again.

“Please, Emma, not… just… not now,” he says softly and turns away.

Emma watches helpless as he crawls back, the mirrors providing a clear view of the pain and the shame on his face. He lies back down on the floor, far from the ring and even further from the coat that covered him, and tries to curl into a ball.

She can’t hate him for denying her help when he needs it, but she hates that she’s made to feel so helpless. She keeps telling herself it’s not his fault, as she rises, picks up her coat and approaches him.

“I’m going to cover you with my coat,” she says simply.

He doesn’t respond, and she doesn’t wait for him to do so, she simply throws the coat over him like a blanket, and he curls further under it as if trying to cover as much of his naked body as he can. He closes his eyes and stays there.

Emma sighs, then sits down next to him, feeling like she’s the only one who can protect him and she’s doing a piss poor job at that. She drops her gaze down to her hands on her lap.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers one last time.


	4. Chapter 4

They bring them more food and water later. Emma has already tried to scream for help, her voice going rough from the misuse, but it looks like the whole room is soundproofed and nobody can hear her outside. Killian doesn’t even look at her. He nibbles at his burger with his eyes cast down and puts it away after he’s eaten less than half of it.

They both use the basin. Emma has had a rough life, but she thinks that her whole she hasn’t felt more humiliated than she has during those days. She guesses it’s barely a full day since they took them. Her parents are probably already worried, but simple worry won’t help. She’ll need them to help them escape this hell.

She sits down facing Killian, and looks around the room. The stinking basin, the broken mirror, the few drops of Killian’s blood on the ground, his vomit… and Killian is still silent.

She rests her forehead in her hands. If the men don’t kill her directly, madness will creep up in her and do the job itself.

She can’t expect anything from him. He’s the one going through a living hell, _again_ , and she shouldn’t expect him to spill his heart out right now. She knows he needs it, hell she needs it too, and she also knows she can’t push him. But the silence is suffocating her.

And then the door opens.

Killian starts trembling a little, bows his head even lower and bites his lip. Emma blanches. She didn’t even put the harness on his arm-

The bald guy enters alone, the door closing and locking behind him. He walks to Emma, and she tries to put every single self-defense technique she’s ever known  to use, but the man is too strong and agile at the same time. He holds her wrists with one hand, grabs her hair with the other and briskly guides her to the chair.

That’s when Killian lunges. He pushes himself off the ground, and even as he groans in pain, he wraps his arms around the man’s middle. With one swift move, the man kicks Killian away, and before Killian can fall back, the man kicks him in the groin.

Killian falls to his side with a high-pitched whimper, his hand on his exposed crotch. The man pushes Emma to the chair and single-handedly ties her back down, even as she protests with kicks and shouts. Ηε rises after securing her ankles and looks at her for one single moment. That gives Emma enough time to spit at his face.

Ηε flinches a little, then contemplates her for a moment. His gaze makes her think he’s going to slap her, but he simply sweeps his face clean with his sleeve, then turns to Killian.

Still curled in on himself, he doesn’t look up at him, he doesn’t even open his eyes. The man picks up the harness and starts dragging Killian on the floor with it, until his right wrist is back next to the ring.

“Stop, please,” Emma begs. The man doesn’t listen.

Instead, he pushes Killian to roll on his stomach, which causes a grunt to escape his lips, then opens the handcuffs only to put them through the ring again.. Killian struggles to pull his hand free in vain, despair slowly creeping up on his face.

The man walks around, grabs Killian’s left arm and moves on to put the harness on it. Judging by Killian’s audible gasps, he’s tying it even tighter than the men did before. Emma can already see Killian’s arm turning red between buckles. Once more, the left over rope is tied around Killian’s mouth, forcing it open in a seemingly painful way.

The man spreads Killian’s legs open and forces him to support himself on his knees, unzips his trousers and, without a warning, slams into him.

Killian screams, the sound barely muffled by the rope. Emma closes her eyes.

“No. Open them,” the man instructs.

No.

Killian keeps screaming, his voice breaking with strain. The sounds fill Emma’s mind and for a moment, she thinks those alone will drive her crazy. She can hear palms slapping on skin, and Killian wailing between screams.

_No!_

Her hands and knees start shaking, her heartbeat racing. Killian is sobbing freely now.

He asked her, _begged_ her to not look at him. She knows that listening to him and sparing him his dignity are a few of the things that help him keep on to his leftover sanity, but it causes him even more pain, and she hates herself, and it’s all her fault.

His screams are shaking her whole, tears are running free from her shut eyes and her knees and hands are growing tired from the shaking.

When she feels like she can’t take it anymore, she opens her eyes.

The man has been dragging his nails down Killian’s back, directly across the welts that are already bleeding. One second later, he looks up at her, and smiles.

“Good girl,” he says and gently places his hands on Killian’s hips and keeps thrusting.

Killian’s head jerks, and he makes a sound similar to a muffled “no”, again and again.

She wishes she could tell him the tears in her eyes are already blurring most of her view of the scene, but her mouth has gone dry, she almost feels like she’s forgotten how to speak.

The man starts thrusting faster, and faster, until he shudders and moans in pleasure. Killian is shaking as well, but for completely different reasons. Then the man relaxes with a sigh.

Foolishly enough, Emma allows herself to think this means it’s over. He took what he wanted, and now it’s time for him to go and leave them in their short-lived excuse of peace.

But suddenly, he starts thrusting again, with such force he almost pushes Killian’s whole body forward. Slowly, securely, he rises on his feet, dragging Killian up with him.

Emma’s tears are still blurring most of her vision, but she can see the way Killian’s upper body almost hangs downward, as if he has no strength left to keep himself straight.

“Please, stop,” her voice comes out as a croak. “My eyes are open, please, don’t do this to him.”

The man ignores her and keeps going, each thrust making Killian’s nearly numb body sway back and forth. Killian is still whimpering, less now than before, but he also sounds and looks completely exhausted, as if he’s going to pass out any time.

Her tears spill and her vision clears; she can see the saliva spilling from Killian’s mouth, she can see blood on the floor between his legs, and she can see - oh _God_ \- a semi-transparent liquid dripping from his rear.

Nausea crawls up in her and she closes her mouth and swallows at the exact right time to avoid throwing up in her lap. She shuts her eyes closed, and it’s not long before she can hear the muffled screams come back. She starts trembling again, feeling no less nauseous, berating herself no less for her weakness.

It’s all her fault. She keeps crying and shaking from the fear and the sobs and he keeps screaming in agony.

At some point, most of his sounds lower in volume, though she can tell it’s not over yet. Now he simply whimpers, pained sounds that even subdued make Emma’s heart squeeze.

She can’t tell how long it lasts this time. She thinks the man finishes once more, and then starts again, but she’s not sure, her own mind trying to escape their brutal reality as well. It feels like centuries walking on burning coals - no, scratch that, it feels like _drowning_ in them. But it stops. She hears the man pull out.

She opens her eyes in time to see the man take one step back, pulling Killian with him, then unceremoniously letting him fall on the floor. Emma whimpers at the sight. Killian doesn’t make a single sound, and for a moment Emma panics. Her whole body freezes and her breath is caught, until she spots his back and sides moving. He breathes in and out, short and half-cut breaths, but he does. Emma lets out her own breath, and doesn’t even look at the man as he walks to her and sets her one wrist free.

With her hand trembling, she tries to free her other hand but the key falls to the floor, and her brain feels like it’s exploding with anger and despair. Killian is still almost dead silent.

Struggling down, eventually she grabs the fallen key and forces herself to focus. She opens the rest of the restraints slowly, but runs to Killian as soon as she’s free.

She loses it when she takes a closer look at him. His back is bleeding, his arm has gone blue, and semen along with blood is oozing out of his rear.

She breaks down. She forces herself to move as the sobs overtake her, her whole body trembling beyond any control, but she keeps going. It takes her a long time, her fingers hurt from the exertion of simply loosening the buckles on his brace, her tears fall on his arm, but finally she loosens every one. She doesn’t even pull his arm out of it, just goes for the rope around his mouth, undoes the knot and throws it away.

Then she hugs her torso with her arms and lets herself go. Hot tears run down her face, falling on her shirt, her lap, the floor, she rocks to and fro and sobs loudly. The only sounds Killian makes during her breakdown are rugged breaths and soft involuntary whimpers. She buries her fingers in her hair and weeps, feeling as if she’s losing her grip. She’s all Killian has to not lose himself in the torture and pain, and she can barely keep it together herself.

She can’t help him. He needs her to stay sane for him and she feels like her weaknesses are dragging him down as well.

She cries and cries until she has no tears left, and then some more.

When she finally relaxes a little, she turns around to look at Killian, and is terrified to see that he’s watching her, tears running down his face as well. He wasn’t supposed to see her like that - she should berate herself, but for now she doesn’t care. Gradually, and almost painfully, Killian pulls his arm free of the harness and stretches it out to her. She looks at it confused, at first, but the look in his eyes pass on the message. She crawls to him, still sobbing, and lies on her side next to him, leaving space between their bodies, but Killian wraps his arm around her waist and with the tiniest of forces, he tries to pull her towards him. She nuzzles into his bare chest and buries her face in it, letting her hand rest on his side, too terrified to risk touching him anywhere at his back.

He hugs her tighter when she starts crying again and then it hits her. In all the chaos, in all the pain, in all the despair, right now he’s the one trying to comfort her. Her eyes go wide at the realization and she almost pulls back in self-disgust. How can she allow herself to be comforted for simply watching him while he was nearly being killed? She cries again into his chest, her sobs slowly resonating with his, and she realizes that he needs that as much as she needed him to talk to her before. He needs to hold her now, he needs her to be strong for him so that she can catch him when he breaks down completely. She shakes with the thought that he has already admitted to himself that he’ll probably reach that point soon enough.

She softly rubs at his side and stays close to him, his stumped arm trembling at her back as it’s his turn to cry out. She holds him, rubbing soft circles at his side, all she can do for him at this point.

She’s heard of assault victims sometimes being called survivors. It’s a word she’s strongly identified with him since meeting him, save for the two or three times he died in front of her, but right now she feels despair crawl into her as she thinks that it indeed is a matter of survival here. They have to keep on - he has to stay alive, and she has to stay sane if they want to win this fi- no, she doesn’t even care about winning anything. She just wishes with all her might that they leave them be and never come back again, she just wants it all to be over, so she can go back home, take Killian with her and try to help him heal as she’ll struggle through the same procedure herself.

She closes her continuously watery eyes, holds Killian close and hopes they’ll leave them be for a little while longer, before they come back and viciously rip out one more piece of them both.


	5. Chapter 5

She has the clarity of mind to cover him with her coat. It’s gone dirty in places but if he minds he doesn’t show it. It’s a bit cold in there, and he’s already lying naked on the cold ground so most of the hair on his arms go up and he shudders from time to time. The sun has risen but it’s not facing the windows so the light is limited as well.

She thinks he passes out a few times, or goes to sleep, she can’t really tell the difference. She just lies next to him with her brows set in a permanent expression of worry. He always comes to or wakes up with a start and with his whole body shaking. His first instinct is to flinch back, away from Emma’s touch, but with one word he comes back to her, and lets her rest her hand on his hair, his cheek, his side. A few times he moves a little back and curls in on himself, acknowledging her gentle touch but not actually accepting it. He doesn’t say a word.

They stay like this for a while, Killian shaking, Emma trying to comfort him, him sometimes letting her.

A few hours later, he tries to sit up, eventually accepting Emma’s help and sits on his knees, wincing and his arms trembling when he sits back on his heels. It takes him a few moments to focus, to stop clenching his jaw from the pain and be able to look back up. He avoids looking at Emma most of the time, even as she gives him water and tries to convince him to let her help him eat his leftover burger.

Emma feels only slightly better, her spirits raised a little after seeing Killian be responsive and acting on his own again, though the fear of what’s coming almost makes her break down again. Almost.

She keeps trying to scream for help from time to time. The windows are small and too far high on the wall, she can’t even see anything outside apart from a part of the sky.

Suddenly, Killian starts whimpering. Emma turns to him and sees his shoulders shake with sobs. She walks in front of him, so that he can see all of her movements, and kneels down.

“Killian, I’m here,” she says when she sees him not look up at all during her movement.

His hand is balled into a fist and his bad arm is pressed on his chest as he gasps and chokes on the sobs.

“Hey, can I touch you?” Emma whispers, not trusting her voice to not break right now.

He tries to answer, opening his mouth and slightly raising his head, but he looks unable to do more. So Emma moves, slowly and softly placing her hands on his shoulders. She wants to cry at the slight flinch she feels at the touch, but he relaxes promptly and leans towards her. Her one hand stays on his shoulder, while the other goes around it and caresses the back of his neck.

Killian cries like a child, his arm not leaving his chest and it wrecks Emma to not feel him nuzzle into her neck. He just rests his forehead on her shoulder and lets it all out.

It takes him longer to calm down this time. The longer they stay trapped here, the longer it takes both of them to get a grip. Eventually, he rests his cheek on her shoulder, and she keeps caressing his neck while the other hand holds tight on his hand.

His breathing has calmed down completely when someone starts unlocking the door. Emma holds on his hand tighter as his whole body shudders involuntarily.

She catches him watch the bald guy entering with wide, almost gleaming eyes. He’s followed by the blonde guy who’s usually tasked with releasing Emma from the chair, the one who also left the keys to her handcuffs when they put her-

The men walk towards them, the bald guy looking at the useless harness on the floor, then back at Killian with a revolting smile. Killian shudders again and looks away. The bald guy goes for Emma.

“Wait,” Emma says softly. They stop and focus on her.

“Just let me put that on for him, please.” She points towards the harness, and the blonde smiles. He looks at the other man, who shrugs, still smiling, and he nods at Emma.

Killian gasps a little when Emma pulls away from the embrace, and she looks at him; his face is devastating, so she focuses on tying the harness around his arm, loose enough to not hurt him, tight enough to be effective so that the men won’t have to tighten it themselves.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. She doesn’t catch any response from him, if he makes one. She looks back up at the men who are patiently waiting for her.

She bites her lips, swallows her pride and ignores all her thoughts telling her to fight back, and this time walks calmly and on her own back towards the chair. She can hear Killian panting and she can swear she can _see_ the tears running down his face even with her back at him.

She has to lay back for a while, pick her battles and give them the satisfaction of having them obedient for once. She tries to tell herself she won’t look this time, she really tries. That’s all Killian wanted from her.

The bald guy secures her on the chair and exits the room, leaving them alone with the blonde. He examines Killian for a moment, then crouches down, ignores Killian flinching away, and opens his handcuffs only to cuff them again when they’re off the ring.

“Lie on all four,” he tells Killian.

Killian swallows, and after a few random moves, his eyes finally focus on the blonde. It’s one of the few times he’s given a direct order, and it’s probably the least compromising one.

But still Killian doesn’t move. He looks back down and bites his lip.

“Come on…” the other man says softly and touches Killian’s shoulder, making him gasp. With minimum force, he pushes Killian’s shoulder forward until Killian takes the position he asked. Killian takes a few short breaths as he looks down, then raises his head and looks at Emma, as if pleading her…

She somehow manages to find a bit of anger in herself for that. He can’t keep asking her to allow them to hurt him more and more and more…

The blonde walks behind Killian and lowers his pants and underwear down to his ankles. His member still flaccid, he kneels down between Killian’s legs and stays there, looking at the battered skin on his back.

Silently, slowly, the man moves forward. Ready to close her eyes, Emma is confused to see him start rubbing himself on Killian. The blonde makes short, low moans of pleasure. Killian doesn’t look okay by any means but she feels like she’s seen worse. The man keeps rubbing, and Emma thinks she can actually see Killian’s face go red and his breathing get faster.

It’s the position, she tells herself, just that…

Then the man pulls back a little and produces a small flat package from a pocket. He opens it on one end and pushes on the other, making a thick fluid fall from the opening right on his erection. Emma’s eyebrows go up against her will and her mouth falls open. Slowly, the man spreads the lube on his member, making himself shudder with the sensation, and then, very slowly and very carefully, enters Killian’s rear.

Killian gasps and leans a little forward, but that’s all. The man thrusts a few times, softly as if fearing he’ll break him, and slowly slides his hands from Killian’s hips up to his shoulder blades.

He keeps moving slowly as he leans forward, making Killian hiss as his back makes contact with the man’s shirt, and then loops his arms around Killian’s shoulders and carefully pulls his upper body up with him as he leans back on his knees.

Now having a clear view of his face, Killian looks… distressed, miserable for sure, but not in pain. The man behind him pants and moans in pleasure as he moves inside him and Killian closes his eyes and hangs his head down.

The man’s gasps turn louder and louder, until he lets go of Killian, who slumps forward with only his handcuffed wrists to break the fall, and with big, hasty and almost uncontrolled moves pulls up his shirt and throws it on the floor. He then leans forward again, wraps his arms around Killian’s shoulders and pulls him back up. Killian hisses again at the contact of sensitive skin on hairy chest but that’s all of his response, save for his dropped gaze.

The man keeps thrusting and enjoying every moment of it, and not even the way the other two men seemed to enjoy… The blonde breathes heavily on Killian’s neck, touches his nose on the side of Killian’s face… and slowly starts kissing his skin. Killian grunts in disgust and tries to pull away, but the man behind him is too strong and keeps him there. Emma contemplates closing her eyes, but this is literally the least they’ve hurt him since they trapped them, and as horrible as it is, it pales in comparison to the rest he has endured, or so she hopes. Because as the blonde lays kisses across Killian’s shoulders, neck, hair and jawline - Killian turns away before the man can make it to kissing his cheek - Killian looks utterly revolted. He clenches his jaw hard with his lips parted and squeezes his eyes shut.

The blonde lowers his hands and starts caressing Killian’s chest, up and down, focusing on his nipples, his stomach, and even his member, as Killian bites back grunts of disgust. The blonde keeps kissing his shoulders and pressing his chest to his back.

“Oh, God…” he says, and Emma’s blood freezes at the voice. She examines his face… this was the same man who masturbated while Killian was forced to _have sex with her in front of them_ …

The man buries his face in Killian’s neck, and no matter how far from him Killian tries to go, the man’s face follows to touch and kiss his neck. The blonde moans.

“Oh my God, oh God,” he says again and pulls off. Still holding Killian up by one shoulder, he walks in front of him and kneels down. Killian refuses to look at him, though the blonde’s body is obstructing most of Emma’s view of Killian. The man lifts up Killian’s handcuffed wrists and pulls them over his own head, swings one arm over them and then the other, practically forcing Killian to hug him close. The blonde reaches up and touches Killian’s face, who grunts and tries to pull away from him, but the man holds him tight.

“You’re so beautiful,” the man breathes.

Carefully, without taking his eyes off of him, he enters Killian again. Killian whimpers a little.

“Oh, oh I’m so sorry,” he says and caresses Killian’s cheek with his thumb.

Emma wants to beg him to stop, but her mouth has gone dry. At first she thought that the man simply wasn’t so eager to hurt Killian, but his ways are far more insidious. He runs his hands down Killian’s chest and breathes out on his face while Killian tries to pull away as far as he can. With his arms around the blonde, however, he pulls him with him with every move.

The blonde still moves inside Killian when his hands reach up to touch Killian’s face again. Killian closes his eyes and he turns away. Then the man reaches and before Killian can react, he kisses him on the mouth.

Killian turns again with a grunt of disgust and displeasure, but the man simply keeps kissing Killian’s face, cheeks, forehead, neck. He lays kisses on his skin, ignores Killian’s protests and keeps thrusting. He pants and moans and caresses Killian’s skin, almost lovingly.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says again and kisses him on the lips.

He groans, almost screams when Killian bites down hard on his lips. He slams his fist into Killian’s temple, who collapses on his side. However, with his arms around the blonde, he looks like a rag doll hanging from an edge.

“Is that how you want to do it?” the blonde asks angrily. He stands up and lets Killian’s arms fall down to his ankles, then carefully steps out of them and spits on Killian. Killian doesn’t even respond, his eyes still unfocused from the blow.

The man’s lip is bleeding. He pushes Killian with his feet, rolling him on his stomach, then positions himself above him and enters him, this time with more force, far more than necessary. Killian screams.

Emma’s eyes fill with tears and she closes them as Killian shrieks and wails. Once again she hears slapping, punching - and Killian breathing out painfully.

When she hears Killian choke, she opens her eyes. The blonde’s big hands are around Killian’s neck and squeeze mercilessly. Killian’s face has gone red.

“Stop,” Emma croaks. It’s low but it’s all she’s capable of right now. She can barely even think.

The man lets go of Killian’s neck, who coughs painfully for a long time to worry Emma. He keeps thrusting with force, his own face having gone red, and Killian whimpers with every thrust. Emma can already see blood where they’re joined.

Suddenly, the blonde lets out a sob. It’s soft and low, but it’s there.

“Why did you do this…” he says and runs his hands across Killian’s back. Killian hisses at the contact. “It didn’t have to be like this,” he adds, grabs Killian’s hips and lifts a little, forcing him to stand on four again. Without even pulling off in the meantime, he slows down his thrusts and uses less force… then leans forward again and hugs Killian’s torso from behind, once again pulling him back up as he straightens his back, keeping full contact between his chest and Killian’s back.

Killian hangs his head, which bobs a little in the rhythm of the man’s thrusts. The man buries his fingers in Killian’s hair and starts kissing him again, and this time Killian is slower to pull away. Emma can see a bruise starting to form where the fist struck and she freezes. Killian almost passed out from the blow, what if it did more damage than it was meant to…

She sees tears running down Killian’s cheeks, his lips parted and pulled away, as if he’s trying to stop himself from crying. He doesn’t manage.

He bursts out in sobs as the blonde keeps moving in him, his hands caressing his whole torso and back and his lips tracing kisses on his shoulders, neck and face.

The man softly grasps Killian’s hair and makes him face him, keeping him steady. He brings up his free hand and caresses Killian’s cheek, then kisses the trails the tears left and finally moves to Killian’s mouth, moving his tongue inside it.

Killian is too overcome with sobs to react, and in this position, the blonde finishes. He breaks the kiss slowly, opens his eyes and looks at Killian. He runs his knuckles on his face one last time and kisses his trembling lips one last time. He smiles, then pulls off.

Killian starts shaking violently as the blonde puts him back down on the floor and cuffs him to the ring once more. He dresses, then unlocks Emma’s wrist and walks away without looking back.

Emma’s feet shake when she stands up and she nearly trips. She walks to Killian, silently releasing his arm from the harness. Killian doesn’t even move to take it besides the sobs rocking his body. Emma now clearly sees the bruise on the side of his face and the ones around his neck. She touches his shoulder.

“No! Stay back!” Killian screams and the sound breaks Emma’s heart.

The violence of the thrusts, the blow, the choking, those were not the worst parts this time, not by any means. The men already distorted their relationship by forcing him to have sex with her, and now they took one of the two only ways she could give him comfort and used it to hurt him again.

If she weren’t almost breaking apart, she would have given it to them, how thorough and methodical they are in making them do just that. Killian drags his body on the floor, immediately shaking his head rigorously in refusal of her offered help and positions himself so that the ring is directly in front of his chest, his whole body shaking with the same intensity in the meantime. He places his hand and stump on his chest, rolls into a fetal position and weeps.

Emma feels like it’s another person making her body move when she picks up the coat and covers Killian with it.

“No! Please, go away,” he chokes between sobs when the fabric touches his skin. “Please… stay away.” He doesn’t even open his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Killian,” Emma whispers monotonously. It sounds like she doesn’t care at all, and for one traitorous second, she wishes she didn’t. She wishes she didn’t care enough for him so that she could keep it together during his complete breakdown. She wishes he hadn’t entered her life and taught her that it’s worth loving someone even if there’s a risk of losing them at some point. She wishes she had stayed as she was and she hates, _hates_ herself for allowing such thoughts to enter her mind and she screams. She buries her fingers in her hair and screams with a passion, as if her already ragged voice could shove those horrible thoughts and wishes away.

Killian cries and Emma screams, both curled in on themselves, away from each other.

Killian is still crying and sobbing after Emma’s voice goes completely off and she thinks she doesn’t have any strength left to burst out. She panics a little as she realizes she partly blacked out during her screaming, she doesn’t even remember if she actually cried or not.

Killian’s sobs bring her attention back to him. She moves a little to the side, so that he can still register her presence from a distance. She lies down and closes her eyes, the only sensation left being the hard floor under her side and Killian’s crying.

She recites her mantra.

_I’m sorry._

_It’s not your fault._

_I’m so sorry…_

_It’s not your fault._

She falls asleep while still whispering the words no one actually hears.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I know this fic is already pretty much as dark as it gets, but I need to warn you of a new possible trigger here, as this chapter contains mentions of sexual abuse of minors. No graphic descriptions, only mentioning of the fact.

She dreams that everything is okay, that they left New York in peace and went back home, that those monsters never took them and tortured them for days, this one just feels like a dream right now.

Then she wakes up, stiff again from having slept on the floor and is hit with the realization that the horror was, _is_ real. She raises her head and opens her bleary eyes to look at Killian. He’s still in fetal position but appears to be snoring softly. She turns back to look at the window and sees a bright blue sky, probably meaning early afternoon. She must have slept for a few hours then, and she wished she knew how much Killian slept and how dreadful his nightmares were.

Tears prickle her eyes and she sighs. She sits up slowly and stretches her neck, snorting at the sore feel.

The smell of their… of the dirty basin becomes less and less bearable the longer it stays there. But it’s only covering the stench of everything else spilled in the room, and the thought of what really is in the same room with them makes Emma nauseous, but once again, she swallows it all down, knowing that she can’t afford to throw up. Who knows when they will bring them another meal…

Emma is not surprised to hear Killian start crying in his sleep again, but her heart breaks nevertheless. She sits in front of him, making sure she has her arms close to the body so that she imposes as smaller a threat to Killian, and she starts whispering.

“Killian, wake up. It’s me, Emma, I’m still here. Please, listen to me and wake up.”

He keeps whimpering as she whispers and she’s tempted to touch his shoulder to comfort him, but she knows she’ll only scare him more.

“Come on, wake up. Please, it’s okay, I’ll be here with you. Wake up.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Killian,” she says louder, a sob threatening to sound.

He jumps at the sound, his wide open eyes searching the room in horror.

“Hey, hey, listen to me, listen to me,” Emma says softly, her hands facing him. “We’re still alone, ok? It’s just the two of us.”

Killian pants, finally focusing on her. He swallows. “What time is it?” he says in a rough voice.

“I’m not sure, I think early afternoon.“ They’ve kept them captive for less than a day, yet she feels that they’ve done disproportional damage to both of them. Especially Killian. She looks at him with a face she knows he’d hate as he, once again, struggles to sit up.

“Let me help you,” she murmurs. Supporting himself on his right elbow, he winces and looks up at her. She feels the tears in her eyes and is sure he can see them too, since he lets her help him up.

“Ah!” he gasps when he finally sits, grimacing in pain and biting his lip. She wants to squeeze his arm in comfort but is scared of accidentally touching a sore place so she just looks at him until he relaxes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she says and closes her eyes.

“You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of porcelain, you know. I can handle it.”

“That doesn’t mean you must refuse my help! Killian, come on. You know I need this too.” Her voice goes up in volume and she can actually hear how ragged it is from all the times she screamed for help, as well as from how she broke down and screamed earlier.

She shudders at the memory and shakes her head. She looks at him and sees how he’s shrunk behind.

“I’m sorry I shouted at you,” she says. She feels so unspeakably awful and confused but she knows this excuse won’t work with Killian, who has… _God_ , she can’t even think of the word. Any excuse she’ll try to find will sound flat, even if Killian doesn’t think that way, so she stays silent and slowly moves her hand towards his.

“Can I touch your hand?”

She sees his hand tremble a little, then him breathing heavily and nodding, almost reluctantly.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“No, no. I want it,” he says so softly she barely hears it, and he nods.

To her relief, he actually reaches for her hand as soon as her fingers make contact. He seems to be okay with that, even if he’s pushing himself a little.

“It’s alright,” he says as if reading her thoughts, “I think it’s better that way.”

She wants to reach for him and let his head rest on her lap or shoulder again. She wants to hug him close again and give him the comfort he craves but is scared of even going a little closer, because she knows he’ll instinctively pull away, then feel bad for doing so and push himself to go back to her embrace. She’d rather have less touch than that.

They stay like this for a little while, until Killian can’t stand this position anymore and asks her to help him lie back on his side. She can see that he’s pushing himself past what his brain tells him to do, so that he - no, both of them - can have that, even with what he went through earlier. She’s glad he’s not rejecting help but it kills her to see him push himself like this.

Later, right as she’s giving him water from the bottle, they can hear the bolts at the door opening and he chokes. She removes the bottle and pushes his head up as he spits the water he almost inhaled in shock and fear.

They turn around to see Carl dragging a simple wooden chair in and another man entering, one of the two who haven’t come back since the first few times. Just then she realizes it’s easier if she has a name on him, even a fake one, so she decides to call him Ed.

  
Ed walks towards her. He’s as bulky as most of the others and has short brown hair and a goatee, and he’s probably as old as Carl and the bald one. His smile looks more like a ridicule for both of them.

“You gonna put that thing on him?” he says as he points to the harness.

Emma turns to see Carl. He’s dragged the chair a couple of feet from them and is looking at them with interest. She turns to Killian, who has managed to calm down. His face is serious as he nods to her and moves his arm to help her put the harness around it.

“Good girl,” Ed says when she finishes. “Now will you be as good as to walk back to your chair on your own?”

Emma turns and spits on his shoes. Immediately, his foot raises and kicks Killian on the shoulder. Killian grunts in pain and unconsciously pulls at the handcuffs as he tries to reach the painful spot with his hand. She should have known better, she thinks, but she couldn’t help it. Killian swallows and clenches his jaw as he looks at her, face still serious.

She doesn’t make a move, so Ed grabs her by the arms and pulls her back to the chair as she thrashes against him. While Ed secures her, Emma sees Killian’s face break, his determination and hold to his anger replaced by almost overwhelming sadness.

She closes her eyes and bows her head. They’ve managed it… barely, but they managed to find a way around it, even after everything horrible that has happened.

But she can’t help feeling terrified of what may come next.

Ed leaves and Carl raises from the chair, twisting it so that it’s facing the mirror on Emma’s left. He walks to Killian, crouches down and looks at him. Killian stares back, managing to keep an angry face despite the occasional winces.

Carl puts his hand in his pocket and when he pulls it out, there’s a leather collar in it. Killian clenches his jaw and breathes heavily, but keeps looking at the man and the object in his hand.

Without a word, Carl moves his hands to put the collar on Killian. Killian grunts and flinches back, as far as his restrained arms allow him, but the other man finishes his job quickly. Then he opens Killian’s handcuffs and once again cuffs him out of the ring.

Carl stands by the chair, throws his coat on the back of it and puts his hands in his pockets.

“Come over here,” he tells Killian.

“Go to hell,” he replies without missing a beat.

“Hm, I probably will, but interesting choice of words. Because I can make _your_ life less of a hell if you listen to me for once.”

Killian doesn’t say a word nor tries to move, so Carl sighs, puts his hand in his coat pocket and walks back to him.

There’s a thin rope in his hand, and Emma feels her blood freeze.

Killian registers it too, but his mask is still one of anger as he keeps shooting daggers at Carl.

The man crouches down and, despite Killian’s protests, manages to secure the rope on the ring of the collar. He stands up and tugs slightly at it, causing Killian to sit up. Killian grunts and holds on the rope with his hand, trying to lessen the pull, but Carl walks back to the chair and keeps tugging. Killian stands up on shaky legs, his back hunched from how low Carl is holding the rope and eventually collapses on his knees when he reaches the chair.

He’s panting from the exertion, and Carl walks behind the chair, facing him, and tugs at the rope repeatedly, toying with Killian. Killian is still looking at him angrily.

“Now why don’t you stay here for a moment,” Carl says and ties the end of the rope on the chair, then grabs something small from his coat and walks towards Emma without looking at her.

Killian stands up and tries to move to the back of the chair. Carl crouches down in the middle between his and Emma’s chair and sets the object down. That’s when Emma sees that it’s a small camera, which he turns on and starts recording with.

“Son of a bitch,” she says.

Carl stands up and kicks Killian down, who was trying to untie the rope from the chair. Carl does it for him and makes him crouch back to the front of the chair, on his knees. Killian is already sweating despite the cool temperature.

Carl sits on the chair, his hips slightly forward, and tugs at the rope enough so that Killian is close to his crotch.

“Unzip my pants,” he says.

“No.”

Carl’s fist meets Killian’s already bruised temple. Killian grunts again, but the rope on his collar doesn’t allow him any movement.

“Unzip it, now,” Carl says louder.

“No,” Killian repeats without looking at him.

Carl leans forward and grabs a handful of Killian’s hair, forcing him to look up at him. Killian looks him in the eye, and his eyes seem to be glistening.

“Look buddy, I can make it either bad or worse. You can work with me, do as I say and I won’t hurt you as much. What do you say?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Carl smiles. “I was wondering when you were gonna use this word. I am indeed gonna go fuck myself after I finish here. And I’m gonna jerk off as I re-watch you giving me a blowjob,” he says, pointing towards the camera with his head.

That’s when Killian realizes what the object was, and his eyes go wide. Carl ties the rope around the foot of the chair, then produces a shorter rope and ties his handcuffs on the front spindle. Killian grunts and thrashes against his bindings, but quickly realizes he can’t undo the knot with one restrained hand. Carl searches his pocket one last time and produces a transparent object that looks like a double mouth guard. Killian tries to flinch back, but again the rope doesn’t give him freedom of movement.

“Now, don’t worry, we’ve cleaned that from the previous time. I just have to take some precautions, you know? I’m sure you’re familiar with how unpleasant the feeling of teeth on one’s cock is, so I’m also sure you understand.”

Carl moves forward and forces Killian’s mouth open with one hand while he places the mouth guard into it with the other. Killian tries to move, to bite back, but the hold of the rope and the hand is too strong. Eventually, the guard is set, covering all of his teeth as well as forcing his mouth to stay open.

Killian moans in frustration when the hold relaxes, and tries in vain to get the guard off with his tongue.

“That won’t do,” Carl says simply and shakes his head. Killian is panting and Emma can see saliva running down his chin already, but he’s still trying to get the thing off.

“You’ll need a hand to take it off, it’s made so that the tongue can’t do a thing to it,” Carl adds as he unzips his pants.

When he sees that, Killian turns to Emma and shakes his head.

_Don’t look._

Emma nods and closes her eyes. She clenches her hands into fists and waits.

For a little while, nothing happens. She focuses on her breathing, making sure it’s slow, deep and steady, and waits.

Still, nothing happens. She can hear Killian’s heavy breathing, occasionally mouthy, and the soft clanging of his handcuffs on the chair, but that’s all.

Her breathing is growing heavier. She wants to look and hell, she _knows_ Carl is doing it on purpose so that she does just that. He’ll be waiting for her to look to start, and until she does that he’ll wrack her nerves by doing nothing.

She knows that her patience has grown weaker by everything they’ve been through these… hell, it’s barely a day since they took them, and Carl is only having more fun with her actions.

She waits until she can’t any more. She opens her eyes only to see Carl smirk and force Killian’s head forward, sliding his penis into his mouth.

Emma groans and closes her eyes again. Killian grunts as well, the sound muffled from… everything.

She doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as she’s felt all that time, and she can’t really tell if it’s because it really is less horrible than the previous times, because she has grown a little used to it, or because she and Killian both had some of their strength back today.

In any case, she manages to keep her eyes closed for… wow, it must be a long time. It’s not like any of the other times, now it feels like Carl is purposefully taking it slow. She can still hear everything but she keeps her eyes closed.

After a really long time, Carl finishes.

“Motherfucker,” he says, panting. Emma can hear a splattering sound, a blow and Killian grunting in pain. She opens her eyes to see that Carl’s release landed on the seat of the chair and that Killian has his head turned towards her, his nose starting to bleed. With his tongue, he spits out the remaining semen and saliva in his mouth and turns to Carl.

“I thought I made myself clear as to what I wanted you to do with my cum. And to think I was nice to you this time.”

Killian’s mouth is still forced open, but his look is furious. He tugs at the handcuffs unsuccessfully and spits at his side again.

Carl grabs Killian’s hair and forces him back towards his crotch. Emma closes her eyes.

“Close your fucking mouth,” Carl says and Killian grunts again.

 _It can be something really simpl_ e, Emma thinks. _He probably tugged at his hair, keep your eyes closed._

Killian keeps grunting, stops, and then actually yells in pain. Emma bites her lip, she knows she can lessen his suffering if she looks but that’s what he wanted her to do…

Killian is screaming and Emma breaks when she realizes the sound is muffled.

She opens her eyes. Carl has scratched at Killian’s back, making the barely-healed wounds bleed again, and is sticking his fingers into them, apparently not caring for the blood covering them.

She wants to scream at him to stop but her breath is caught, and he doesn’t even see her, doesn’t see that she opened her eyes and he keeps hurting Killian.

She tries to speak, but a low whimper is what comes out. It gets Carl’s attention anyway and he turns to her. He looks fascinated, almost feral with the excitement. He doesn’t say a word and simply pulls his hand away from Killian’s back only to grab his hair with it. Now with both hands on his hair, he keeps pulling Killian to him, thrusting into his mouth.

“Stop,” Emma manages.

“Oh,” Carl breathes and throws his head back. “Beg me, bitch.”

His breathing has gone faster and he lies back on the chair, his eyes closed as he reaches his climax.

With one final grunt, he brings his bloody hand on Killian’s lips, forcing them closed.

“Swallow it.”

Killian doesn’t respond. Tears are running down his cheeks from his closed eyes and half his face is smeared with his own blood, but he doesn’t oblige. He hums, clearly unable to get any air out of his mouth.

“Swallow it, I’ll stay like this until you do.”

She can see that he tries, he really tries to defy him. But even when Carl’s member goes flaccid while still in his mouth, Killian can’t stand it anymore. So he swallows.

He makes a sound of disgust as Carl pulls away with a moan of satisfaction.

“And don’t you dare throw it up this time,” Carl says and removes the drooling mouth guard, shaking it to rid it of the saliva.

Killian’s shoulders have started shaking.

“Killian,” Emma says.

He doesn’t look at her. Carl tugs at the rope.

“Your lady asks for you, sweetheart,” he says and nods at her.

After the shock, the disgust and the helplessness, Emma is surprised she can feel absolute hatred for that man.

“Don’t talk to him like that,” she says, her voice more serious than ever.

“Why? What are you gonna do?” Carl says and turns to her, still tugging at the rope.

“We’re gonna get out of here. And when we do, there will be evidence to have all of you sentenced for life.”

“Huh. You heard that?” He turns to Killian. “All she cares about is getting our asses to jail.” He laughs. “As if, _if_ you really get out of here, you won’t really be traumatized for the rest of your lives.” He turns to Emma. “You think this is the first time we’ve done this? Really? We know there are people searching for you, but trust me, they’re never gonna find you here.”

A thought suddenly occurs to Emma. Objects that already have magic can still work in this world. So if someone cast a locator spell on one of their things…

“We’ve made sure of that,” Carl continues, rubbing Killian’s hair with his dirty hand. Killian tries to pull away, but the rope still doesn’t allow him any movement.

“Come on, one more time,” he says and forces the mouth guard back into Killian’s mouth, despite his protests.

This time, Carl raises a little from the chair. He passes the rope between his legs, then grabs it with both hands behind his back. Killian is breathing heavily, saliva already spilling from his mouth. Emma’s not sure, but she thinks she can see blood in it.

Carl tugs at the rope, forcing Killian’s face to rub on his genitals. With a groan of disgust, Emma closes her eyes and bows her head low. If she does survive this, those images will haunt her for a long time… and she realizes that for the first time she’s contemplating she may not get out of there alive.

Eventually, she realizes when Carl enters Killian’s mouth again and she barely holds back her vomit, disgusted not only by the idea, but also because she hates herself for feeling that she hasn’t had worse. Killian is over there suffering for these men’s pleasure and she’s just…

A choking sound makes Emma open her eyes.

The only reason she doesn’t throw up at the sight she sees is because she’s dead worried about Killian. Carl has them both positioned in such a way that she’s sure his member is almost going down Killian’s throat, yet Carl keeps pulling with the rope. Killian’s eyes are wide open in shock and he starts trying to move his hand, in an effort to stop the assault, and the growing despair of the action makes Emma think that survival instinct has taken over him and he doesn’t understand that his hand won’t be freed.

“Stop! You’ll kill him!” Emma shouts.

“Eventually,” Carl pants without looking at her. She sees new tears streaming down Killian’s face, and slowly, his eyes start rolling back in their sockets…

“No! Please!” she screams, her voice breaking in the effort. “Stop!”

Carl simply lets go of the rope and Killian falls down on his side, choking desperately. He heaves, but nothing comes out, and he stays there for a long time, trying to get his breathing under control again. When Carl starts walking around him, Killian raises his legs, trapping one of Carl’s legs between them and twisting, making him fall face down on the floor.

Carl simply laughs as Killian gasps for air. “I’ve gotta give it to you, you have some guts,” he says, stands up and walks behind Killian before kicking him in the rear. Killian moans through his open mouth, bringing his knees closer to his chest.

Then he sits back on the chair, rope in hand again, his member still erect.

“Now will you come here or will I have to pull your leash like a dog’s?”

From the mirror facing him, Emma sees Killian’s eyebrows furrow and his eyes squeeze shut. He tries to sit up, if only to not be dragged up, but he’s too slow and Carl too sadistic. Carl starts pulling the rope before Killian can support himself on his elbows, practically lifting him up only by the collar. A few whimpers escape Killian’s open mouth, and his voice sounds distorted. Killian winces when he’s forced to sit up again, and Carl smiles.

“With the amount of times we’ve fucked you back there, it is bound to hurt every time you sit. My apologies, but I think you’d prefer that from having to swallow our cum every time.”

With that, he brings Killian a little forward, and pushes his own hips a little, so that only the top of his penis rests on his tongue. Carl lets out a moan and closes his eyes, and with steady, rhythmic moves, he tugs and lets go of the rope, making Killian’s head bob only a little, but enough so that he’s practically being licked by him.

“God, I wonder how many times I can actually come with you today…” he says and keeps going, occasionally checking if Emma is watching, and she is, and on and on he goes until he spills once more. Immediately, he tugs the rope upwards and holds it there. Killian doesn’t swallow, but Carl waits. About a minute later, Killian’s Adam’s apple bobs a little, suggesting that he swallowed, and Carl bends over to check. He shakes his head. “Come on, I’m not gonna let you go until you swallow it all down.”

A few seconds later, Killian almost coughs, _heaves_ as if he’s trying to breathe.

“Oh, shit, I’m a jackass,” Carl says and leans forward, pulling out the mouth guard and letting go of the rope. Again, he forces Killian’s mouth closed, and Killian tries to hold on for a few seconds, but eventually swallows.

“That’s my boy,” Carl says, almost lovingly. As if to emphasize that, he caresses Killian’s hair softly.

“Now, I’m gonna give you an option as to what comes next,” Carl says. Killian raises his head, managing to appear angry again.

“Either I’m gonna fuck you again, probably standing up even with the danger of suffocating you to death with my cock, or you’re gonna answer a few questions.”

Killian simply stares at him and doesn’t respond.

“Oh yeah, your pride is probably too high to allow you to choose, so I’m just gonna start asking, and if I don’t get answers, I’m simply gonna fuck you. So,” he says and huffs out a breath, “are you as submissive as I think you are?”

Carl waits, genuine curiosity marking his face, but he gets no response besides Killian’s stare.

“Okay, okay, maybe that was a bit too much for a start, so I’m gonna go with a more simple one. How did you get the scars on your back?”

Killian doesn’t respond.

“I mean, I know that there are subs with extreme tastes, but I could swear that these scars were made by people who hated you and, frankly, I would be very interested in hearing that story. Were you tortured before or something? I mean, we’re not the first ones who treat you this way?”

There’s one, just one, extremely short change in Killian’s expression, but Emma can see it, and she freezes with the thought that if _she_ saw that, there’s no way Carl, whose face was inches away from Killian’s, wouldn’t see it.

“Oh, shit,” Carl whispers, his eyebrows raising. “We’re not the first ones, are we? And whenever that happened, you were…”

Killian clenches his jaw. It’s subtle but it’s all Carl needs.

“Wow,” he says, blinking a few times. “I mean, wow.” He sits back on the chair, inadvertently dragging Killian with him.

“It’s not-” Killian starts.

“Hey, look, I’ve fucked 14-year-olds, okay?” Carl interrupts him. “A few of them survived and trust me, I _know_ that look.” He sighs. “I owe someone fifty bucks.”

Killian’s lip starts trembling and his breathing is getting heavier. Carl leans forward again, now way too close to Killian’s face. Killian tries to flinch back, again in vain.

“You’ve been pretty defiant all that time, and I admire that, but hey, I can understand why your poker face fell now that I reminded you of it all.” He smiles innocently. “Tell me, how old were you?”

Killian drops his gaze. He’s still silent.

“Were those the same people who whipped you?” Carl keeps going. “Or was it your father or something?”

With the mention of the word, Killian’s eyebrows go up a little on their own. Carl picks up on that.

“Oh, it was him, wasn’t it?” Carl’s voice is almost sympathetic. He raises his hand again and strokes Killian’s hair. “Your daddy was evil with you and wanted to hurt you? And you were-”

“No,” Killian gasps.

“No what?”

Killian squeezes his eyes shut. “It wasn’t him.” His voice is harsher than Emma’s ever heard it.

“Hmm,” Carl says. “He didn’t rape you, you mean?”

Killian breathes out, eyes still shut. “No.”

“But he did hurt you somehow, didn’t he?”

Emma wants to tell him to stop, she craves to relieve Killian of having to hear those words, but she fears that if she does speak up, if she gives Carl the slightest of hints that she knows this matter truly upsets Killian, then he won’t let it go and will keep pestering him.

But Killian simply raises his head, his face a neutral mask. “Why do you want to know?”

“I had a crappy childhood too, you know. My father used to hit me, then he started getting drunk and shit, completely ignored me and my sick mom until he died of cirrhosis and made my life better. I can guess something similar happened to you.”

Killian shrugs. “And why do you care?”

Carl huffs. “I’m willing to give you some peace, a break from having to deal with my cock inside you and you question my motives?” He throws his hand into the air. “Of course I don’t give a fuck about you, who you were or how exactly being raped influenced you. We were just curious out there to know if this wasn’t the first time someone raped you and I simply wanted to know.”

“Well, you got your answer,” Killian says coldheartedly.

Carl shakes his head in disappointment. “Only one of them and only because your face betrayed you.”

“Then do what you have to do.” Killian’s voice doesn’t waver for one moment, which makes Carl’s eyebrows go up.

“Killian…” Emma manages at the same time Carl whistles.

Killian’s face doesn’t change. “I’m done with your questions.”

Carl smiles, a bored but still wicked smile, and without a word brings his hand to his flaccid penis and starts rubbing.

Killian turns to Emma, his face breaking for half a second, long enough to make her eyes fill with tears, and shakes his head.

“Please,” he mouths.

A tear slips down her cheek as she tries to silently bargain with him. But he’s so determined to mask his pain that she knows nothing she says will convince him otherwise.

So she closes her eyes while Carl hurts him.

Ultimately, she realizes it hasn’t got easier at all. She hasn’t got used to his screams, his wails, his unconscious attempts to get the help of someone who’s not there to help, or even the fucking sounds their bodies make.

She thinks the only thing she got used to is the disgust and the swallowing back of her vomit, as she feels beyond disgusted at the end of it yet everything stays in.

She opens her eyes and sees Carl remove the mouth guard, then bend over and untie the handcuffs from the chair. Just as she thinks he’s going to drag a semi-conscious Killian to the ring, he pushes him back and Killian falls with a pained groan, in what looks like an uncomfortable position, since his knees are bend under him while his whole upper body lies on the floor.

He’s sweating and crying and trembling, but he still looks at Carl as he hovers over him and sits on his stomach. Carl lifts up the handcuffs, bringing them to the ring in the collar, and before Killian can react, Carl secures them there with a padlock with a long shackle.

Killian grunts, trying to free his arms but every move tugs at the back of his neck. He pants in despair, and his face falls as he realizes how dire the position he’s in is. Eventually, Carl pulls him up by the rope and when he’s halfway up, he starts dragging him to the ring on the floor.

“No, no!” Emma tries, but he ignores her. He bends down, opens the padlock and closes it again once it’s through the ring, this time not only securing Killian’s arms to the floor, but his head and upper body as well.

Killian thrashes around, desperately trying to make any move, but he’s hopelessly trapped.

Carl stands up, picks up the camera and releases Emma’s hand, which immediately tries to go for his face. Carl avoids it easily but raises his eyebrows nevertheless, smiles at her and walks out.

After she’s free, she runs to Killian and takes a closer look. With his wrists on each side of his neck limiting his movement and the ring almost pressing at his throat, it’s a matter of time before he injures himself. So she opens the buckles of his harness, releasing his left arm so that he can lie on that side. He does, and closes his eyes. He looks utterly exhausted and in pain, so once again, Emma picks up her coat and covers him with it. However, it’s not long enough to cover his back, which looks terrible, almost life-threatening with all that blood and open wounds. She picks up the bottle with what little water was left in it.

“I need to wash your back a little. Is that okay?”

His eyes are still closed and his face is pained, but he nods. He hisses at first at the contact of the cold water, which by no means was enough to do the job, but his back looks slightly… _less worse_ now.

Emma stands up and sits down in front of Killian, always giving him some space. She examines the collar, and realises she can’t loose it open with the padlock on the ring, since one part of the leather goes over it. She’s starting to feel sorry for him, with how he’s bound to the floor with literally very little freedom of movement and she knows he’s going to hate her for that.

“Thank you,” he whispers, taking her by surprise.

“For what?”

“For not interfering, when he was speaking. And for not looking when I asked you not to.”

“I didn’t listen at first. And not looking only made things worse, it always does.”

“They would have done so eventually, Emma, it’s me they want.”

“You think this isn’t hurting me? Having to choose between not listening to you and having to look while they hurt you?”

Killian swallows. “If they wanted to hurt you-”

“They already have,” she interrupts him. “I know- I _know_ , it’s not like… but they do it consciously. They knew I was going to avoid the sight and they found a way to force me not to. And it hurts both of us.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

She sighs in despair. “For what?”

“For dragging you into this.” A tear slides down the side of his face.

God, she just said they want to hurt them both and he’s still…

“Shut up,” she chokes. “It wasn’t your choice, it wasn’t your fault. Now shut up and… just shut up about it.”

Killian curls in on himself, eyes still squeezed shut and his lower lip bit between his teeth. It makes Emma feel horrible with how she spoke to him.

“I’m sorry, Killian. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be harsh, just… please, I listened to you before so listen to me right now. If there’s someone to blame it’s them, not you, okay?”

She gets no response, beside him starting to sob, so she lies on her side, facing him. As she does, she gets a view of the sky through the mirror and realizes it’s almost sunset. Her eyes go wide. How long was Carl in there?

“Can I touch your hand?” she asks.

Killian is sobbing softly, but he manages to nod. She reaches with both her hands, one wrapping over his stump and the other holding tight on his only hand.

It’s only been hours since they woke up, so she guesses they won’t go back to sleep soon. So she simply holds onto him as he sobs. Once again she’s hit with the fear that they may not survive this whole predicament, and her whole body shivers in response.

No, no. She broke down twice when Killian needed her, and he needs her even more now. She’ll have to make it through. For him.

And she will.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cocohook38 on tumblr made a fantastic piece of art for this story! You can check it out [here!](https://justsomewhump.tumblr.com/post/159473898002/dirty-little-sessions-ch-7)
> 
> Make sure to tell the artist how much you liked the art!

 It’s not long before they bring them food again. Emma frowns as she walks to Killian with the bag in her hand. His neck is practically chained to the floor, how the hell is he supposed to eat in that position?

He snorts weakly when he sees the bag.

“I’m not hungry,” he says and turns away.

Emma can do nothing else but nod. “Do you at least want some water? I can help you with that,” she says sheepishly.

He sighs and closes his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers.

He manages to grab the bottle with his restrained hand, and Emma keeps his head up with one hand while the other helps control the motion of the bottle. Holding him like that, she sees that his eye has gone black a little next to where Carl punched him before. Killian spits out the first two gulps, then empties the rest of the bottle. He frowns when they realize that was the only bottle they gave them.

“Bloody hell,” he says, letting his head rest on the floor, “I’m sorry.”

Emma closes her eyes in frustration. She doesn’t want to hear him utter these words ever again.

She sighs, finally saying, “It’s okay. I think I can take it a little longer. Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

He nods, but she knows he’s lying. She doesn’t eat either, not willing to indulge while he starves himself out of spite.

Eventually, their stomachs start complaining loudly some time after night has started to fall. Killian gives Emma only one look, but she understands and immediately turns her sight away, not looking either at him or the mirrors. She grabs her burger and starts eating, surprised that this time they actually got them a tasty one. She can hear the clanging of the metal behind her as Killian struggles to eat, and she almost starts crying right there. She puts down her burger and tries to steady her breathing, hoping that Killian won’t notice her turmoil.

Suddenly, she hears him whimper. She turns around to see he has dropped his leftover burger which, fortunately, is very little, and his eyes not focusing anywhere. Just looking at the void, his head jerking here and there.

“Hey,” she says and moves closer to him. “What’s-”

“Stop!” he shouts suddenly before she reaches him, and tries to flinch back, grunting at the pull of his collar but still trying to move away, clearly not registering that he’s still restrained.

He grunts and whimpers, pulling and pulling and his wrist starts bleeding again, his left arm swinging left and right as if trying to shove something away.

“Killian? Killian, listen to me! What’s going on?”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps thrashing around, and then she remembers. She once read that typical PTSD symptoms include having flashbacks of the time of the assault. And now, seeing it happen in front of her, seeing Killian trying to resist and get away from whatever he was actually seeing, feeling and hearing as if it was really happening to him all over again, makes her freeze in place, unable to do a thing to help him.

Eventually, his screams bring her back to reality and she reaches over, careful to not go too close and, of course, avoid any physical contact. The thing is, she has read about it happening, but she has no clue how to help stop it.

"Killian, please listen to me,” she says, loud enough for him to hear but still in a soft way, "it's me, Emma. I'm here, right next to you. Listen to me. Focus on my voice. You’re safe now.” She bites her lip as she realizes how inappropriate this word is, but she continues. “They’re not really here anymore, they’re gone and it’s just me and you here. Killian, please, come back to me.”

Suddenly, as fast as he was lost, he comes back. He looks up at Emma with shock, his eyes full of tears again.

“Oh,” is all he lets out before he curls into himself again. He brings his face closer to his hand and covers it with his palm, breathing hard. “It was as if it was happening all over again…”

Emma doesn’t add that she fears it _will_ happen again, sooner than they can dare to hope. That’s when she gets an idea and almost hates herself for not thinking about it sooner.

“Next time I’ll let them take me,” she says, managing to not make her voice break.

He freezes. Slowly, he opens his eyes and looks at her through his fingers. “What?” he barely whispers. His lips start trembling.

“I’m not going to say it again,” she says, clenching her hands into fists and looking down, away from him.

“You’re not- Emma, no…”

“I can’t let them keep hurting you-”

“No, please,” he says and grabs her arm with his hand. His voice is so weak and so shaky, but his grip is so strong Emma actually feels pain.

“No, Killian, listen- you need time to heal and rest, and-”

“I can’t let them do this to you,” he whispers brokenly. He’s breathing hard again, his tears falling, and his grip no weaker. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s hurting her. “No, no, no…” he adds, shaking his head and making more tears fall.

Then the door opens.

He doesn’t let go nor stops looking at her even as she turns to see all five men enter the room, one of them holding the riding crop, another holding the camera, and a third holding something that looks like a big pillow shaped like a ramp. The last one closes the door behind him and they all turn towards the two of them on the floor. Emma pushes Killian’s hand away from her arm and sits straight up.

“I believe you heard what I said,” she says, her voice uncertain but stable.

“Yes, yes we did,” Carl says indifferently.

Her heartbeat threatens to speed up, but she manages to control the fear creeping up so that won’t happen. “So, you’ll…” she starts but trails off.

Killian gasps, and from the corner of her eye she can see him open his eyes wide and reach for her again.

“We heard it, but that doesn’t mean we’re interested.”

“If we wanted to do you, sweetheart, we would already have done so,” the blonde man says.

She doesn’t know if she actually feels relief or more horrified. She looks back at Killian, who has managed to put on a more neutral mask. The red in his eyes and the tear trails are still visible, and he can barely reach to wipe them away, so he just looks at her. He nods at her.

“No. No!” she says, looking up at the men. “Don’t do this to him again.”

“Well frankly, we could fuck them both at the same time,” the bald man says and Emma feels a shiver run down her whole body.

“No need to rush, boys. We still have quite a show for our lovely lady to watch,” Carl says without taking his eyes off of her. He nods at the bald guy, and Emma stands up in protest.

“No, don’t even-” she starts, but grunts when the man grabs her, “Let go of me!” she shouts and starts thrashing again. The man she named Ed grabs her as well and they lead her back to her chair, easily tying her down despite her protests. She’s starting to feel her muscles grow weary from the bad sleep and the exertion, but she still feels she didn’t try as much as she could.

Now all she can do is watch again as the men stand next to Killian.

Carl crouches down in front of him, and Emma can’t help but let out a sob when she sees Killian flinch away from him, still unable to change his position. Ed raises his hand and starts recording with the camera. Carl grabs the coat and throws it away, and that’s when she realizes that once again she didn’t put the harness on his arm.

“Wait! Just one moment, let me put the harness on his-”

“Oh, no need, no need, we can do it ourselves,” Carl says, turning to her and smiling almost innocently. He then turns back to Killian and opens the padlock, leaving the collar still attached to the handcuffs but at least off the ring on the floor. Killian grunts and stretches a little before the bald man grabs Killian’s collar from behind, forcing him to sit up. Killian makes a choking sound, then winces as he sits, still almost unable to breathe.

“Let go,” Carl says, looking up at the man. He obliges.

Killian leans forward, coughing as he tries to steady his breathing, and gasps when Carl touches his shoulders and pushes him back up.

“Blood looks good on you,” he says. Killian immediately jerks his head up, spitting Carl on the face, a little blood mixed with saliva landing on it as well.

“As it does you,” Killian replies, smiling back.

Carl doesn’t say a thing, he simply looks up at the bald man, and without any warning, the latter kicks Killian at his middle. Killian bites his lips as he leans forward again, and this time, Carl grabs Killian’s hair and pulls his head up, forcing him to look at him. Killian stares.

“Now, here’s the thing; everyone we’ve brought here, we’ve kept their clothes. The men, we make them spill, then spill the cum on their clothes. The women, we rub the clothes on their cunts so they get wet as well. Though it’s harder to make a woman wet while you’re raping her, you know?” Carl chuckles. “Now, I was about to ask you if you would be kind enough to jerk off yourself for us, but you thought you could play it tough on me, so I’m gonna have your friend make you come instead.” His mouth opens wide, a bigger smile than Emma has seen on his face, and he looks at Killian, who’s barely managing to keep his own face straight. He throws Killian forward and beckons at the bald man, who holds Killian down as Carl puts the harness on his arm, apparently tighter than needed again. He stands up and nods at the blonde. The blonde smiles and takes off his shirt again, lowers his pants and underwear and kneels behind Killian, who hasn’t managed to sit up yet.

Some of the men start laughing. Carl walks to the mirror, turning his back on it and resting his palms on the bar, watching with mild amusement.

“Don’t forget to look at him, dear.”

“Fuck you,” she says without thinking.

“Oh, look at that!” he says and turns to her, even more amused. “Your time for that will come too, don’t worry.”

The blonde man reaches over and slides his palms up Killian’s back, making him almost hiss at the contact with his battered back. Almost. Again, the blonde wraps his arms around Killian’s shoulders and pulls him up, bringing his back to his chest. He shifts them a little, so that they’re directly facing one of the mirrors, their left sides on Emma.

“Do you want me to enter you?” he says, softly, at Killian’s ear. Killian turns away, disgust clear on his face and closes his eyes. “Will you come faster if I do?” he adds and starts leaving quick kisses on Killian’s shoulder. Killian squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his jaw, clearly feeling even more uncomfortable than the previous time.

Slowly, the man slides his hand down Killian’s torso, softly rubbing on his chest, his nipples, his stomach, and then reaches for his penis. Killian lets out a soft grunt at the touch and tries to pull away, but the blonde is far stronger and keeps him there.

The man starts rubbing his hand on Killian. Slowly, Emma sees the blonde starting to erect, and with a moan of pleasure, the man starts rubbing his erection between Killian’s buttocks. Killian grunts in disgust and keeps trying to pull away. Emma grunts as well and averts her gaze, knowing it’s gonna hurt Killian. But how are they gonna make him come if they keep hurting him?

She doesn’t care for the answer, because once again she hears Killian choke, and she looks up to see the blonde pulling on Killian’s collar, again from behind so that the pressure is put directly on his throat.

“There you go,” Carl comments on her. The blonde lets go of the collar.

“You’re gonna kill him,” she says.

Carl shrugs. “As I said before, eventually, yes, his body will give away. But do you want to speed that up?” He raises his eyebrows and looks at her with mock pity.

She looks back at Killian, notices all the blood on his back, the bruises on his face, and his devastatingly disgusted expression and for one single second wonders if it would indeed be better to speed it up. He doesn’t need to go through any more humiliation and pain, as willing as he seems to be for the latter. But then that second passes and she hates herself for thinking that way.

If, _if_ they do manage to survive this, however, she’s gonna need to make a lot of thinking on her thoughts during those horrible days.

The blonde lowers his hand again and starts rubbing on Killian’s member, his breathing low and deep as he keeps rubbing himself on Killian and kissing his shoulders. Killian grunts in disgust and tries to pull his arms free again, sweating from the exertion. Eventually, his instinct seems to take over and Emma grunts in disgust herself when she sees him go hard as well. Killian is biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut, apparently having absolutely no control of the situation. The men cheer when they spot his erection and the blonde starts rubbing faster.

Emma turns her gaze away. They won’t keep hurting him if they want-

A cry of pain disproves her thoughts as she turns back to see Killian wince in pain, though still erect.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Carl tells her and Emma wonders why it’s always him who speaks, why it looks like it’s him who’s the one who gets to have the most… Emma shakes her head to clear her mind of that thought and keeps looking at them.

Killian’s face does not longer show pain, but the disgust and discomfort in it make Emma feel upset all the same. She has to force herself to keep looking, she knows Killian will hate her for it, but she just wants to get over it with, and the less she looks, the more it will last.

Time passes and the man is still rubbing.

“Does he usually take that long?” Ed says, turning to her. Emma is certain she’s shooting daggers at him, if his briefly terrified face is any indication, but she stays silent, if only to not scream in her fury. _How dare he even ask that?_ He turns his gaze back away from her, camera still recording.

It does take long, but when Killian starts shuddering, the fifth man - a young one as well who looks like he smoked a good dose of weed before he came here - runs to them, opening a small cylindrical container and brings it to Killian’s erection. Killian finally spills, a soft whimper escaping him as he leans forward and goes flaccid, refusing to look at the man collecting his semen. Emma herself closes her eyes and lowers her head, and for a few seconds, she lets the sounds of Killian choking overwhelm her until she can’t take it anymore.

When she opens her eyes, the blonde lets Killian drop forward. Killian is choking for breath as he tries to rub on his neck, where more bruises are already forming but barely manages to relieve the sore places.

Carl walks to him and with his foot pushes Killian on his back. Killian hisses, the cold wood rough on his damaged back, but looks up, first at Carl, then the four men behind him. He tries to crawl away when Carl kneels down and forces Killian’s legs open, but he seems too worn out to do anything. So Carl sits right in front of crotch with Killian’s legs at his sides and slowly leans forward. He puts his hands on the floor at Killian’s sides, then supports his body in them, his body and face mere inches from Killian’s.

Killian is panting, but he doesn’t take his eyes off him neither changes his angry mask. Then Carl closes the distance and goes for his lips. Killian tries to pull away, his teeth clenched together, but Carl simply kisses first his upper lip, then his bottom, ignoring Killian’s protests and always careful to have the right angle so that Killian’s hand can’t go for his neck.

“Hmm,” Carl says as he pulls away, “I guess they would have been softer if we had given you more water.” He then leans back on his knees and opens his zipper. Killian grunts and tries to roll on his side, but Carl is quicker and thrusts into him with force anyway. Another groan escapes through Killian’s clenched teeth, but that’s all the sound he makes as Carl starts panting. Emma can already see blood on the floor where Killian’s back is being dragged on.

Ed and the stoner, respectively holding the camera and the riding crop, walk to their right so that the camera can easily change its focus from Killian to Emma and back. At that, Emma closes her eyes and turns away, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible.

Then she hears a whipping sound, and Killian grunting softly.

“It will be one lash for each second you keep your eyes closed,” Ed says as another lash is heard. Emma bites back a whimper, but indeed they hit him once per second, the whipping sounding as an ominous clock that never misses a beat.

She counts them, one by one, until she reaches sixteen and feels like she can’t take it any longer. She finally opens her eyes. Killian hasn’t made a sound since the beginning, but his face is scrunched in pain and his jaw is tight, lips pulled back in an effort to control his reactions. His stomach has gone red from the lashes but isn’t bleeding yet. His back, on the other hand…

He does grunt when Carl grabs Killian’s member and starts rubbing again. Killian closes his eyes tight and tries to move away, but Carl’s hand on his crotch and hip is strong.

“You don’t have much time left, you know,” Carl says, panting. “You already lasted longer than I thought you would, more than anyone we’ve brought here, the time will come when your pathetic body won’t take it anymore.” He moans in pleasure as Killian starts going hard in his hand. “And then, do you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna rape your pretty corpse. I’m gonna rip your bloody corpse in two with my cock. And I’m gonna make your lady watch. Have you seen “Clockwork Orange”? Yeah, we have that stuff as well. When she’ll have nothing left to lose, we’ll force her to watch me rape your corpse.”

Emma freezes in shock at his words, she can’t even react when she sees the glistening of Killian’s tears as they run down to his temple.

Carl then brings up his free hand, caressing Killian’s sensitive stomach before he continues. “And when rigor mortis sets in, I’m going to jerk off on your pretty face. You’ll die and you’ll stink of me. You’ll die with my cum in your ass and mouth and you’ll reek of me until you rot. And when flies start eating your face, I’m going to move to your lady and rip her in two as well. I’ll fuck her next to your corpse, _on_ your corpse,” he throws his head back and laughs hard before he adds, “I’ll have your cock set straight and I’m gonna make her sit on it while I fuck her from behind. I’ll give her what I gave you, and she’ll die with me in her, too. You’ll both die with me in you. Isn’t that beautiful?”

Once again Emma can feel her meal threatening to escape her stomach, and she’s almost too slow to react, as she heaves forward and a bit of saliva spills from her mouth. The men laugh as she closes her eyes and her mouth tight, trying to ignore the sounds of the lashes and Killian’s soft whimpers as she swallows it all down. She wants to look up, she wants to stop them from hurting him further but is too shocked from Carl’s words. She’s still feeling terribly nauseous with the thought of them coming real, with the thought of them hurting her while Killian will be gone, while the direct proof of it will be lying next to her…

She opens her eyes to look at him, still alive in front of her. Parts of his arms have gone red as well now, and his tears are freely running down his face. She almost throws up again at the sight of him being still erect and rubbed by Carl’s hand.

“Shocked, huh?” Carl says between pants. “We don’t usually kidnap friends, let alone couples. This, honestly, makes our imagination run wild.” He laughs and, as he rubs, bring his face closer to Killian’s erection. Killian has his eyes still closed and he can’t see it…

“No,” Emma whispers, but it’s too soft to warn Killian before Carl starts licking him.

Killian groans in disgust, throwing his head back even further, raising his neck from the floor a little. “Son of a bitch,” he croaks.

“I assure you, and your lady” Carl says as he keeps licking, “my mom was anything but a bitch, so,” he bites a little, making Killian shriek, “don’t ever talk about her again.”

He keeps licking and when Killian reaches his climax, Carl takes him whole in his mouth and waits. Killian spills inside him and goes flaccid, then Carl reaches forward and forces Killian’s mouth open with his hands. He opens his lips, letting Killian’s release spill into his mouth, forces it closed, and waits.

Killian is shaking and sobbing softly, trying in vain to escape the torment and spit out his release, but Carl’s hold is steady. Carl starts thrusting into him again, the movement causing more tears to spill from his shut eyes. Slowly, Killian manages to let everything drip from his mouth - semen, saliva, blood - down his jaw and neck. Carl laughs and pulls his hands away as Killian groans in disgust and spits. Right then, Carl ties back the rope around the ring on Killian’s collar and sits up, pulling him up as well.

He then nods to the bald man, who picks up the ramp-like pillow and places it right where Killian’s back was. Emma feels her stomach turn at the sight of Killian’s back and of how much he bled out on the floor. Carl slowly loosens his grip on the rope, making Killian fall back again, and as he does the man moves the pillow so that it supports as high as Killian’s back. At the end, Killian’s head is hanging back on the high edge of the ramp, and before he manages to react and pull it up, the bald holds him in place by the hair.

Killian lets out a low whimper, and for the first time fear shows in his face as the bald produces the mouth guard. Killian keeps his mouth closed tight, but then the blonde, still shirtless, comes over and forces it open, and then the other man easily slips the mouth guard into it.

Before Killian can pull it out with his hand, with Carl still inside him, the bald unzips his trousers and forces his erection deep into Killian’s mouth. Killian’s scream is cut short as the other man’s member goes so deep that Killian’s lips touch its root. Killian’s hand jerks helplessly in an effort to pull him out of his mouth, and the other men start laughing.

Killian’s face starts going red, and he consciously tries to choke.

“Stop it,” Emma says softly. “He can’t… he can’t-”

“He can’t breathe,” the blonde says.

“He was fine before,” the bald says as he keeps thrusting.

“Yeah, man, but he was crying. There’s probably snot up his nose,” the blonde says simply. “Your dick’s suffocating him,” he adds with a smile.

“Oh,” he says simply and pulls out, holding tight on Killian’s hand so it won’t remove the mouth guard. Killian coughs and gasps for air. “We have snot in our nose, little crybaby?” the bald mocks him, then puts his fingers into Killian’s nostrils. “Ugh,” he says when he pulls them out and sees the mucus on them. He wipes them on Killian’s already messed up and dirty hair, then puts them in again to pull out more, wipes them and then enters him once more.

Killian is shaking from the sobs, the blood on his back spilling on the ramp, and from that position Emma can barely see his face.

The men keep going until they finish, both almost at the same time. The bald’s member is so deep in Killian’s throat that Killian has literally no choice but to swallow his release before he pulls out, grabbing Killian’s hand again. Carl stands up and walks to the stoner, picks up the crop and looks at Killian. He waits until Killian manages to open his eyes and look at him, barely covering the devastation on his face.

Carl laughs. “We were just getting started, buddy. You’re gonna take all of us in turns.”

Killian gasps, and starts panting when he sees the stoner walk to him and grab his hand as the bald lets go, stands up and walks to kneel between Killian’s legs. Killian manages to lift his head a little and look at him, with his mouth still forced open. “Uh-huh,” he makes and shakes his head vigorously, but the other man simple enters him forcefully without even looking at him.

Emma instinctively closes her eyes, but snaps them back open when she hears the lash.

“Good girl,” Carl says and lifts his hand, letting the crop rest on his shoulder as he watches. Emma turns to see the other men - Ed is still recording with the camera, biting his lip in excitement, the blonde is looking at the sight in front of him with interest, and the stoner tries to unzip his pants with one hand while Killian’s head jerks right and left. Eventually, he manages to let his erection out and he gracelessly pushes it into Killian’s mouth.

“Forgive him, he’s new,” Carl says, biting his lip in an effort not to laugh.

Emma’s hands are starting to shake. At times her head drops on its own, but jolts up again every time she hears a lash.

The stoner finishes first, then goes again once more. He finishes right after the bald exits Killian, and it’s time for him to go to Killian’s crotch while the blonde kneels over Killian’s head. Killian is crying openly now, his tears streaming down the side of his forehead to his hairline. The blonde caresses Killian’s cheek with his free hand, and when Killian wails at the stoner entering his already bleeding rear, the blonde whispers soft “shh”s to Killian, bending down and kissing his chin. He then starts caressing Killian’s hair, not caring if he touches the places where the bald wiped the mucus off his fingers, and finally lowers his hand to unzip his trousers.

Again, the blonde goes slower, softer, with his hands caressing Killian’s hair and face while the stoner thrusts mercilessly, both men moaning in pleasure. Killian whimpers during the whole thing, though his sounds are muffled and distorted, and of course, his body still shakes from the sobs. The blonde finishes first and he pulls out. Emma freezes and opens her eyes wide when she spots a little blood on the blonde’s still erect member. The blonde slowly removes the mouth guard.

“Hey,” Ed says.

“Just a moment,” the blonde says and lifts Killian’s head up in his hands. He moves so that he’s facing him normally and bends down, his face inches from Killian’s. Killian looks too exhausted and in too much pain to pull away when the blonde kisses him on the lips softly.

“Aw,” Carl makes mockingly.

“You were wrong, you know,” the blonde says as he turns towards him. “He’s more beautiful without the blood.”

“Hey, _you_ punched him there, remember?” Carl says with a laugh.

“That’s besides the point.” The blonde rolls his eyes, and adds, “And he was being a bad boy.” He then turns and kisses Killian’s lips once more, meeting a little resistance this time. He’s caressing his hair when the stoner finishes with a pant. The young man pulls out and makes a disgusted sound as he sees all the blood on his member.

The bald man smiles. “Time to bring out the big guns.” Carl laughs at that and turns to Ed, offering his hand for the camera.

“Do me justice,” Ed says.

“Definitely,” Carl responds with a smile, holding the camera up.

Ed takes the mouth guard from the blonde, who moves on his knees towards Killian’s crotch, caressing his torso at the same time. While the blonde gets into position, Ed bends down and with barely any force, opens Killian’s mouth and puts the guard in. Killian hardly resists to anything, looking worn out.

The blonde once again pours lube on his erection, causing Ed to snort. “Always the sensitive one,” Ed says.

“Shut up, big guns,” the blonde mocks him back and enters Killian, so slow and soft Killian simply gasps. “I just wanted to make one part of this interaction less painful.”

Ed hums at that and opens his zipper, exposing his _extremely big_ but still flaccid penis. He picks it up and lets it fall on Killian’s face, obstructing almost half of it with Killian not making a single move to push it away. Ed starts moving slowly, causing his member and testicles to rub on Killian’s face, who now Emma can see is squeezing his eyes shut.

Killian starts panting, and with that sound Ed grunts and goes hard. Emma’s mouth falls open when she sees how really big it is now, her breath going faster as well.

“Please, wait,” she says and her voice breaks. Ed turns his attention to her. “I’m looking at you, and you said you won’t hurt him much if I do, so please, don’t do that.” She would feel pathetic if she didn’t already feel her limbs go numb and her head get ready to explode instead.

“Uh,” Ed says, turning to the men on his left. “She thinks this is gonna hurt him a lot.” He smiles and turns back to Emma, saying, “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He then winks and promptly turns towards Killian.

“No, please!”

Killian’s eyes go wide and he makes a choked whimpering sound when Ed enters him. He has stopped sobbing, but now his hand is moving frantically here and there, trying to grab Ed’s member and pull it out in a subconscious effort to get rid of the thing that’s choking him.

Eventually, Killian starts heaving, his upper body jolting forward.

“Oh shit,” Ed says and pulls out, and immediately Killian starts vomiting. Ed doesn’t roll him on his side.

“No! No, no, no, no! Please help him!” Emma shrieks.

Killian’s vomit starts pouring out of his mouth as he gasps for air.

“Hey,” the blonde says, still inside Killian, but having stopped thrashing.

Ed sighs and rolls Killian on his side facing Emma, throwing him off the ramp. Killian heaves forward, a pool of bile, blood, semen and half-digested meat landing in front of him. He takes one big breath, then leans forward for more, though this time only saliva and blood come out. They drip from his mouth as his whole body shakes, heaving again but nothing coming out. Ed leans towards him.

“You done?”

Killian whimpers, his eyes not focusing anywhere. The blonde man sighs and pulls out, his member flaccid and bloody.

“You didn’t finish?” Carl asks him, genuine wonder in his voice. But Emma doesn’t look to see the blonde’s response. She’s looking at Killian, who’s still shaking and drooling, slowly trying to curl into fetal position. However Ed doesn’t let him, as he rolls him on his back again and puts him on the ramp. He quickly enters Killian’s mouth again and continues thrusting into him. Killian eventually gets exhausted of trying to pull him out so he lets go, limply moving in sync with Ed’s thrusts. He doesn’t even make any more sounds now, except the occasional choked ones.

Finally, Ed finishes, his blood-stained penis still spilling as he pulls it out. He removes the mouth guard, pulls the ramp from under Killian and stands up. Killian turns his head to his side, a bit of blood and semen spilling from his mouth out of his control. He then tries to roll on his side and bring his knees closer to his chest in the process.

“Killian…” Emma whispers. If he heard her, he doesn’t show and instead keeps trying to roll on his side.

Carl gives the camera to the blonde man and walks to Killian, hands on his hips. He looks at him for a moment, then pushes him on his back again and holds him there by pushing with his foot on Killian’s shoulder, making him wince.

“Come on,” he says to the other men. The bald man walks towards him as well, sitting down on Killian’s knees to immobilize him. Then Ed produces a very long, thin rope, which he starts tying around and up Killian’s ankles, making a knot every now and then. When he reaches Killian’s knees, the two men stand up and roll Killian on his stomach. With a groan, Killian tries helplessly to crawl away but he has no chance against all of them together.

The two men lift Killian up from the shoulders, holding him to sit back on his heels. Killian winces again, low-pitched whimpers escaping his mouth. The bald keeps him steady as Ed wraps the rope around Killian’s thighs, again making the occasional knots but also passing the rope between the loops on Killian’s lower legs, rendering him unable to unbend his knees. When Ed reaches Killian’s crotch, he ties the rope around his penis as well, making Killian hiss at the contact of the hard rope against his sensitive area.

Then Ed walks around and wraps the rope around Killian’s back as well, tying his penis close to his stomach. Killian yelps as the rope touches his bleeding wounds and tries to move, to escape, but the bald man pushes him down instead, so that Ed can pass the rope through the new loops on his thighs as well, giving Killian close to no freedom of movement, as his torso and arms are tied as close to his legs as his body allows, and probably closer than that. Ed finishes by wrapping the rope around Killian’s mouth, making a very tight knot Emma is not sure she’ll manage to undo.

They step away from him, and all men look at him as Killian struggles to move without success. He’s already drooling, and his efforts to pull the rope out of his mouth prove fruitless.

Carl sighs, picks up the unused rope on his collar and drags Killian’s completely restrained form towards the ring on the floor.

“No, no, wait! Why are you doing this?” Emma manages, her voice rough.

He ignores her and ties the rope around the ring, apparently making Killian’s back arch lower than he’s comfortable with. He starts grunting softly and clumsily trying to untie the rope from the ring, but he’s too tired and unable to focus to do so.

Carl walks behind Killian,opens his zipper and sits behind him. Killian can probably already feel him or see him from the mirror, because he starts shivering and whimpering softly. Once again, Carl enters him, thrusting even more brutally than before.

A few seconds later, after Emma can see from the mirror that Killian is bleeding again, Carl lifts up his head to his men.

“Go,” he says.

The men smile and the first who moves is the stoner, who starts kicking Killian on his side. The blonde doesn’t move except to film from the desired angle, while Ed and the bald man open their zippers as well and start pleasuring themselves on the violent sight.

They’re a little closer now, and it’s only now that Emma realizes she has been crying all this time. At times her vision would blur, then clear again, but she thought it was from the exhaustion and the shock, not the tears welling up in her eyes and then falling.

Nothing changes much now, her vision blurs and clears in sync with Killian’s pained, muffled and occasionally choked sounds. The stoner keeps kicking him on the sides, on the head, on his back, everywhere he can, as the other men ejaculate on his bruised and bleeding body. Then they start kicking him as well, all three taking turns hitting him and spilling on him until Carl finishes with a moan, his head jolting back in pleasure. He pulls out, and Emma sees him pick up an object from a pocket and do something to Killian’s rear, but Killian doesn’t react. Carl’s fingertips come away stained with blood.

He stands up and starts kicking Killian from behind, his foot landing on his most sensitive parts and Killian starts screaming and thrashing against his bindings, the rope burning the skin on his whole body and making his wounds bleed more with the friction.

It keeps going. They kick him until he’s bleeding and bruised almost everywhere and spill on him until he’s almost dripping with semen.

By now he’s stopped thrashing around, only his chest moving as he breathes in and out. He’s stopped making sounds as well besides his choked gasps for air.

The men look at him, others with interest, others bored, and without any word or warning, they simply walk out after they pick up the ramp and Emma’s coat from the floor.

Emma jolts when she sees them walk out without letting her free.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Hey!” she shouts, her voice rough. “Let me go! Where are you going?!”

But the door closes before she finishes her sentence. She stays there for a moment, frozen in shock, still looking at the door, hoping it will open again and they’ll remember to let her go and let them have what little relief they managed to have during those two days. They can’t- they can’t really do that, can they? They can’t leave them there tied up and not let her help him after how gruesomely they treated him.

A choking sound makes her turn back to Killian, who once again lurches forward and heaves, though this time only semen and blood comes out. He seems to collapse in on himself, unable to make even the slightest movement and stays there, blood and saliva dripping from his open mouth.

Emma starts sobbing. “You can’t leave me like this!” she says, knowing they can hear her. “Please, just let me free. You can’t-” her voice breaks as she starts sobbing hard, tears falling on her lap. She tries to lift her head up a little.

“Killian?” she whispers. “Killian, please, listen to my voice, listen to me. Do… just _do_ something.” She keeps talking between sobs. “Anything, just, make a sound, something. I need to know you’re with me.”

But Killian doesn’t respond, lying completely still in his child-like position he was forced in, only his sides moving with his short breaths, his own blood starting to pool around him.

He can’t even hear her. She can’t go to him and help him out of anything, his painful position, his ropes, his wounds, his terror, and now she can’t even let him know she’s still there for him.

Still sobbing, she leans forward and before she has time to realise it’s coming, she throws up on her lap.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This one is gonna get a little graphic in its description of Killian’s battered body. Not that much, but I do have to warn you a little.
> 
> Also make sure to check out [another art piece by cocohook38](https://justsomewhump.tumblr.com/tagged/dirty-little-sessions)!

 She falls asleep at times despite herself. She wakes up with a kink in her neck and opens her eyes to see her own vomit on her lap, then looks up to see Killian in the same position he was before she fell asleep each time.

He hasn’t moved at all - can’t move, though Emma can see from the mirror that his eyes are half-open, blinking slowly every few seconds. She keeps calling to him but he doesn’t respond, and that chills her to the bone. He simply stays there, only breathing and blinking.

At times she wakes up to see his eyes closed, but soon he starts trembling uncontrollably until he reaches forward and heaves, nothing but saliva and a bit of blood coming out each time. Emma starts to get worried at some point, thinking about the amount of times he’s thrown up without drinking any water in between.

Her stomach starts growling but her appetite is completely lost because of everything around her. Killian urinates some time later, the liquid mixing with the blood on the floor around him, and its dark color confirms Emma’s fear that he’s dehydrated. Her wrists have already gone red, almost bleeding from her previous efforts to get free and help him but she tries again in vain, to get to him, to do something, anything.

“Let me go! Please! Let me go!” she shouts and keeps thrashing against her bindings.

A few moments later, the door opens and Carl enters, apparently having showered and changed clothes. Emma winces when she sees him walk towards her but keeps looking at him.

“How do you like your chair?” he asks.

“You have nothing to gain by keeping me tied up here. Let me go.”

“What?” He snorts with a laugh. “Who said we have nothing to gain?”

“I know you like seeing me help him and go desperate when he doesn’t accept it. So please, do yourselves a favor and let me try and fail to help him.” Her voice is barely above a whisper but she speaks fast, not caring about how pathetic she may sound.

“Why would we do that now? We _know_ you’ll fail anyway. Look at him, do you think he’s in any state to appreciate comfort right now?” As he speaks, he turns towards Killian and nudges his shoulder with his foot. Killian doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even seem to register the touch.

She guessed that it would happen, that he would shut down at some point then, but she still feels her heart go heavy as iron at the actual sight. Killian standing there, completely immobilized and unresponsive to any kind of touch.

Carl turns back to her. “You weren't really intended to be here,” he says. “We just wanted him, you were collateral. You weren't intended to be let off this chair at any time, just to sit by and watch and be helpless even when we were out of the room. But we figured you were a couple so we played along.” A small smile appears on his lips, and he turns to gaze at Killian.

“I think that's why he’s survived that long. They usually go quickly because they're alone. But he had you to untie him, to offer comfort, to give water. And of course, that third time we would have raped him again, but instead we thought it would be funnier to have him fuck you while we watched.” He takes a step towards her, leaning down so that his face is close to hers.

“So you're an important factor to his survival, but there are two ways of seeing it. You gave him hope and got to spend a few more moments with him, sure, but on the other hand he was humiliated in front of you, and of course, you got to prolong his suffering. So think on that.” He smiles. “I don’t think he’s going to make it past today, especially with what I’ve planned for him, so you may as well prepare your speeches for when we let you go.” He reaches up and caresses Emma’s cheek with his knuckles, following her when she flinches away. “You won’t have much time with him, better give him something to hold on to while he waits for you to join him.”

With one final smile, he simply steps out of the room.

Emma turns to Killian’s slumped form and lets her tears fall. She can’t help feeling relief when she sees Killian silently crying as well, his tears rolling to the bridge of his nose before dripping to the floor. She wishes it wasn’t like this, but she’ll let herself be comforted by the fact that he’s responding to something. He’s not yet completely lost.

She has no idea how that may change in the near future and she doesn’t want to imagine it.

“Killian, listen to me. I know you can,” she says in a soft voice, loud enough for him to hear but not enough to scare him. “I want to try and help you. So, if you could listen to me and focus on my voice…” She takes a breath, trying to think clearly. “Close your eyes and imagine you’re on your ship. We’re together, you’re standing at the helm and I’m right next to you, the wind is blowing on our faces.” She doesn’t even care that she may sound ridiculous to the others, or that they may mock her for her attempts later. “The sea is calm, and we can smell the salt, clear like in the… forest, not like in the harbor. It’s a bit warm, with the sun on our faces, but the wind is cool. We stay there and listen to the sound of the waves hitting the side of the ship. Some seagulls fly buy, and we watch them and try to mimic the sounds they make.” She smiles despite the tears running down her face. Killian’s eyes have closed again. “And we stay there until night comes, and we see the stars - some are falling and we watch them fly on the sky and disappear. And we’re together, holding each other close…”

She keeps going, looking at Killian’s eyes, relieved to see them closed and Killian not shivering or waking up only to throw up again. She tries to describe scenario after scenario, sometimes she repeats herself but she keeps going until sleep claims her again.

She’s still sleeping the next time someone enters the room, and she’s too sleepy to understand which one it is who releases her wrist. She moves slowly from the exhaustion and shock but she lets herself free and walks on shaky legs to Killian, gracelessly falling on her knees beside him.

She rubs at her bleary and wet eyes to take a better look at him. Some of the wounds seem to have closed, but there are a few places where pus has oozed out of them. Great.

She shakes her head to help herself focus and tries to undo the knots on the rope. It proves almost impossible, with her numb and near bleeding fingers slipping from the thin rope, the knots too tight.

Without too much thought, she walks to the broken part of the mirror and picks up the biggest shard she finds. She wraps her sleeve around the least sharp half of it and holds it steady in her hand, carving a line on the wood to test its edge, which proves to be sharp enough, if the carves she made are anything to go by.

She walks back to Killian and starts cutting the ropes, choosing the top one first so that she can pull the rope out of his mouth. There’s a knot on every loop, so she has to cut each loop individually to get Killian free. Her palm starts bleeding a little but she doesn’t give it any notice, even when the blood starts staining her sleeve.

When she manages to cut all the ropes around Killian’s torso, she cuts off the rope that keeps his collar tied to the ring on the floor and undoes his harness, which has caused his arm to bleed too. Slowly, carefully, she pushes and guides him so that he lies on his side. His eyes are still closed but his face is scrunched with pain, and he grunts softly when he touches the ground. Emma then turns to the rest of the ropes, wincing when she accidentally scratches Killian’s leg with the shard.

“Shit. I’m so sorry,” she whispers but keeps going. She’ll comfort him later…

Killian unconsciously stretches his legs as Emma cuts more and more ropes and gives him more movement. She wants to throw up again at the sight of the rope burns and the bruises on his body but keeps cutting and cutting until all the ropes are gone. Killian slowly curls into fetal position without opening his eyes.

Emma looks at his wounds, infected and not, and sighs. She has nothing to help him clean them, no water, her clothes are already too dirty… she looks at her own top and contemplates taking it off and covering him with it, but what is that going to accomplish? It will probably irritate his wounds more and probably cause more infections.

She looks at the blood around him and swallows hard. She feels disgusted by the idea that she has to check him down there, so she takes a few breaths before she turns and looks.

“Oh my God,” she whispers when she realizes the object Carl used to toy with Killian was a butt plug, which is still stuck in there. “Oh God,” she says again and reaches to pull it out, making a disgusted sound when she touches it.

Her previous nausea is nothing compared to what she feels after pulling it out. A mix of blood, semen and _shit_ oozes out and runs down Killian’s thighs, filling the whole room with a horrible stench.

Emma can’t tell what exactly she expected; that thing was in him for _hours_ , it was bound to… she turns her back on the sight, hugs her torso and starts rocking to and fro, biting down her scream. She’s beyond disgusted, terrified, and feeling sorry for Killian. Shaking, she turns around so that he’ll see her, if he opens his eyes, and cries.

“I’m so sorry…” she says again and again.

She’s strong enough to use the basin for her own need, her urine dark as well. She starts feeling fatigue and knowing it signifies dehydration, she lies close to Killian, trying to whisper words of comfort every time he starts crying in his sleep - or while awake, for that matter - or when he has flashbacks, or when the pain of all his wounds seems to be almost unbearable.

She doesn’t know if she should touch him. She tried to go near him and he didn’t flinch, but she couldn’t know whether that was because he didn’t see her as a threat or because he was too numb to respond. She prefers to think the former but doesn’t want to risk driving him crazy with fear, and even if she could touch him, she wouldn’t know where since his whole body is either bruised or bleeding, so she stays back and keeps talking to him.

She thinks she falls asleep again, and when she wakes up a shiver runs down her spine at the sight of sweat on Killian’s forehead.

The infection…

Without thinking, she reaches and touches his forehead. She whimpers when she feels him burn up, Killian shivering at her cold hand.

‘Oh God, no.”

She steps closer and lifts his head up with her hands.

“No, no, Killian, hey, Killian! Don’t leave me like this, okay? Please stay with me.” Her voice breaks and she starts sobbing, crouching closer to him and hugging his hot - and dirty, but she doesn’t care - head to her chest.

“Please, stay, stay…” she whispers on. Killian whimpers at the cold of her skin and the pressure on his bruises and starts shaking, completely limp and looking terrifyingly small in her arms. Emma sobs.

Killian keeps shivering, his temperature not falling at all as Emma holds him. Time passes, and she contemplates turning her head up and asking for help - maybe someone will come and give him a medicine, or something - but she realizes it would probably only give them ideas to make Killian’s situation even worse. So she stays there and cries.

After a while, she starts hearing loud voices from outside. Really loud, since they come through the soundproof door, but she can’t really hear who is talking or what is being said. Then silence, and then the door is being unlocked. She holds Killian’s trembling figure closer, as if trying to become his personal shield towards the evil.

_It’s too soon, he’s not gonna make it…_

The door is pushed wide open and two men Emma has never seen before enter the room. She shivers and starts to pull away, freezing when she notices the men’s dark uniforms, bulletproof vests and lowered automatic guns.

“Clear,” one of them says.

She breathes in relief, and through the open door she sees Ed being pushed forward by another police officer. However Killian starts whimpering softly.

“Oh my God,” one of the men in the room says. Emma clutches onto Killian tighter when they try to reach her.

At that, the men throw up their hands and put their guns away. “Excuse us,” one of them says, while the other turns to his radio and says “We need an ambulance, one man down, and maybe one woman.”

Hearing that, Emma shakes her head. “I’m okay,” she says.

The first man, younger than the other, crouches down to her level and approaches her carefully. “Are you hurt?” he says.

Killian seems to register the man coming closer and nuzzles into Emma, his whimpers growing louder.

“Hey, hey,” Emma says softly. “It’s okay, they’re- we’re gonna get out of here. You’re gonna be okay.” Her voice is weak as she caresses the side of his face, careful to avoid the bruises.

She shakes her head again at the man, “I’m not hurt.”

“Your hand and wrist?” the man says, nodding at them

“Oh.” She looks, ignoring the thin trickle of caked blood on them. “It’s nothing… I don’t need an ambulance.”

“Your friend? Can he talk?”

She caresses Killian’s hair without taking her eyes off the man. “I- I don’t know, he’s sick. His wounds are infected and he’s dehydrated…” Killian is still shivering in her arms, his eyes closed.

“An ambulance will be here for him shortly,” the other man reassures her.

“How did you find us?” Emma asks.

“Sheriff Nolan found the place and informed us.”

Emma’s eyebrows shoot up. “David? He’s here?”

The young man nods. “He’s outside, waiting for you. Shall we tell him to come in?”

She’s ready to say yes, but then looks down at Killian. The men already put the pieces together and realized what has happened to him. She’s not sure if Killian will want David to know about it too.

“Not yet, but please tell him I’m okay.”

The man nods again and steps outside. Killian seems to relax a little at his absence and grows limp in Emma’s arms, still whimpering softly. The other man turns around and stands on the door, giving them privacy.

  
“Killian, we’re safe now,” she whispers to him. “The men are gone and they won’t hurt you again. You’ll be okay.” She looks at the collar and the handcuff on Killian’s hand then turns to the cop.

“Did you find something that could open these?” she tells him.

He shakes his head. “We haven’t had time to search, but I have a knife,” he offers.

She nods. That may do until the ambulance comes. The man takes out a pocket knife and approaches them carefully, crouching down when he comes closer but Killian still flinches, biting his lip to stop himself from whimpering again.

“Are you sure you can do it?” the man asks, looking at the cut ropes around them. Emma simply nods.

The man puts the knife on the floor and slides it to Emma, then stands up slowly and walks away, a sympathetic expression on his face.

Emma picks up the knife, making Killian whine at the loss of contact with her hands.

“Hey, I’m still here, I’m just…” Emma says as she pulls the blade out. “I can help you take off that thing, it may squeeze your neck a bit, just don’t panic, okay?”

She knows she is talking more than she needs to, but she has to let Killian know what exactly is going on. So she puts one finger through the collar and pulls softly to make some room for the blade. Killian whimpers again, his eyes scrunching.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Emma says, but Killian’s face doesn’t relax. She bites her tongue remembering how the blonde man treated him, but she pushes that memory down thinking that the bastard will rot in jail for what he did and starts cutting. It only takes a few seconds for the damn thing to be cut and fall from Killian’s neck, releasing his hand as well. Killian takes a deep breath, shivering as he releases it and nuzzles into Emma again.

“Thank you,” she says to the man, puts the blade away and pushes it to his direction again. She can hear voices and shouting from outside being interrupted by a low siren.

“The ambulance is here,” the young cop says, entering the room. “Shall I tell them to bring in a gurney?”

Emma grunts. She’d think it was obvious…

“Right,” the man says and rushes out.

A few moments later two paramedics enter with a gurney and rush towards them, causing Killian to start shaking and crying again.

“Hey, it’s okay, don’t worry…” Emma tries, but he doesn’t calm down. The paramedics wait patiently, but at some point one of them turns to Emma.

“Would you like us to sedate him?” she asks.

Emma looks at her, then down at Killian. He probably didn’t even hear her, and Emma can’t just let them drug him without his consent. She shakes her head. “I’ll help you put him up, just give me a moment,” she says and leans towards Killian’s ear. “Hey,” she says softly, “the paramedics are here to get you- they’ll get you to the hospital, and I promise, I won’t leave your side. Just let me and them help you get on the gurney.”

Killian finally opens his eyes, gone red from crying. His jaw is trembling, and he manages to turn around and look at the others. He squeezes his eyes shut, hiding his face in Emma’s lap again and shakes his head.

“Killian, please. They just want to help you.”

He shakes his head again, his hand curled into a fist.

“You could consent for him to be sedated if he’s unable to do so,” the other paramedic says.

“He doesn’t _want_ to be sedated,” Emma hisses at him, and he sighs. The first paramedic nods at him and they spread a sheet on the floor next to the lowered gurney.

“Just help him lie down on that sheet and we’ll do the rest,” she says calmly.

Emma nods and turns to Killian. “Killian… they’re not going to judge you,” she whispers so low only he can hear, “they do this every day. Just please, let them- us, help you.”

Killian’s face relaxes a little, and he tries to move, to crawl onto the sheet with his arms, but his fatigue takes over and his falls on his stomach, wincing. Before Emma can react, the paramedics are all over him, rolling him on the sheet. Killian shrieks and tries to move away.

“No, wait!” Emma tries to shout, but her voice is too weak, _she_ is too weak…

They quickly put him on his side on the gurney, Killian unsuccessfully trying to escape despite his exhaustion, but finally they cover his body with another sheet up to his neck. Emma stands up as they lift the gurney, her knees shaking and threatening to turn into liquid. The cop catches her arm to keep her up, but she shakes his hand off and walks to Killian, who is still sobbing and trembling.

“It’s okay,” she says, pulling the sheet up a little more so that it’s covering the bruises on his neck. “They can give you a medicine so that you’ll go to sleep. I promise you I won’t leave your side at any moment. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Would you like to go to sleep?”

After a bit of hesitation, Killian finally nods, his lip bleeding a little from how long he’s been biting on it. Emma turns to the paramedics and nods. They make quick work, hooking him up to an IV - Emma holds his stump during that, then picks up his hand again. The paramedics put an oxygen mask on him, and again Emma has to calm him down.

“It’s okay, I’m still here,” she says.

“Tell him to count with you to ten,” one paramedic says.

Emma turns and counts to him, he doesn’t make a sound. He’s out before she reaches five.

“I’ll be here,” Emma says as they start rolling the gurney outside.

“Ma’am,” the cop tries but Emma shakes her head, without even looking at him.

Emma contemplates asking if Killian can have nightmares while sedated, but she’s already feeling her mouth go dry and her feet barely keeping her up. She tries to let the fact that _they’re saved_ sink in, but the shock of everything-

“I’m sorry, but you can’t follow,” the paramedics say when they reach the ambulance. Emma looks up.

“What?” she whispers.

“He needs to be cleaned up, maybe prepped for surgery. And there’s not enough-”

“No! No, I promised him I’ll stay with him!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you get in. You can see him when he’ll be ready-”

“No, no!” Emma shakes her head vigorously, but the paramedic nods to the cop behind her. He only touches her shoulder slightly but it’s enough to keep Emma behind and let them get Killian in the ambulance. She feels her head swim and her knees shake, if she doesn’t get to sit down soon…

As the door of the ambulance closes, Emma spots David on the street, talking on the phone. He immediately spots her as well and hangs up, running to her.

“Oh my God, Emma! What did they do to you?” he says and grabs her by the shoulders, checking her face and body for wounds.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, they barely touched me…” she says, and the moment she thinks of saying how Killian needs her, she bursts into sobs. David puts his arms around her, holding her close, his familiar hand cupping the back of her head as she cries.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re both safe now…”

Emma pushes him away when she sees the ambulance drive away. Still crying, she turns back to David.

“We have to go! I can’t leave him alone,” she says, her voice like a squawk from the misuse and the crying, but David nods and guides her to his car with his hand on his back. Emma shakes her head at the officers waiting, eyes still looking at the direction of the ambulance and they enter the truck silently.

David tries to reach for Emma when he sees her tremble on the seat, but she just shakes her head and shouts at him to go. She hugs her torso with her arms and cries almost all the way to the hospital. When David pulls over, she tries to move and open her door, but she’s frozen. She can’t move at all, not even turn her eyes away from the door handle.

“Emma?” David says, worried. “Emma!” he says again and shakes her shoulder. “Please, say something!”

“I can’t move,” she whispers. “Get me out of here, please.”

David exits and opens her door, gently pushing her out, but Emma’s knees give out when her feet touch the ground.

“Emma, sweetheart, look at me,” he says softly.

“Get me to Killian,” she says, her eyes cast down.

“He’ll be okay. They’re gonna fix him. But you, Emma…”

“I’m okay!” she almost screams, still not having moved at all. “Just get me in there.” More tears start running down her face and sobs overtake her.

“Okay, okay. Just lean on me, alright?”

It takes David time to pull her arms from around her, but he manages to throw one around his arm and put his hand on her waist, slowly guiding her to the entrance.

It takes them twenty minutes to find where Killian will be kept - they had to clean all of his wounds and stitch him up, as well as give him preventative medication for STDs. It’s only then that Emma worries about the men not using any protection, and that she may need to have some medication and run some tests as well.

David suggests she goes wash herself, and she does. She looks at her reflection in the mirror - pale, dark circles under her sunken and red-rimmed eyes, her lips cracked and her hair a mess. She washes the caked blood off her wrists and palm, feeling glad for the tetanus shot she and Killian had a few months ago. The wounds aren’t deep, she can easily hide them under her sleeves. She brushes her hair with her now wet and clean fingers, trying to remove some of the dirt off of them. She then sighs and steps out.

David is waiting for her there, holding a few bottles of water and a few sandwiches in a bag.

“Come and eat something. You look famished,” he says.

Emma sits down next to him, all her movements slow. She gulps down a whole bottle, then half of another one before she goes for the sandwiches. She only takes two bites before she starts shaking and sobbing again.

David puts his arms around her and guides her head to his shoulder, letting her cry out.

“Emma…” he starts when she relaxes again, “please tell me if those bastards hurt you.”

Emma squeezes her hands around the sandwich. “No,” she whispers.

“You can tell me now. They’re arrested and there’s enough evidence to get them in jail.” His hand rubs soft circles on her shoulders, and she has to concentrate on not flinching away from the touch she knows she needs.

“No, Dad. They just… sort of pushed me around.” She’s not ready to tell him _that_ now-

“From your chair?”

Emma’s head whips up at him. “What chair? How do you know?”

David sighs and drops his gaze. “I… saw. Saw them, from up the window. What they were doing…” He takes a deep breath and swallows hard, his eyes still on her.

“You saw? You saw?!” She shouts the last one. “You were there? What took you so long?”

“They didn’t believe me at first. I had to show them my badge… and then have others come in order to get a warrant… I’m sorry, Emma, I did as fast as I could…”

“You saw what happened…” Her voice is low. “You saw what they did to him?”

David nods, his expression hard.

A sob escapes her. Killian is going to hate it. Emma was hoping that no-one had to know the exact details, and David saw the worst of it.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he says again. Emma nods. He’d found them in the first place - using a locator potion on one of her scarves - so she couldn’t really be mad at him. He did all he could.

Emma feels her mouth run dry, so she takes one more big gulp of her water, rests her head on David’s shoulder and nibbles on her sandwich, allowing herself a moment to relax.

But she forgets it all as soon as the nurse informs her that they had to sedate Killian again, because apparently he woke up in the hospital and had a panic attack.

“They said it would keep him asleep for hours!” Emma shouts at the nurse.

“His body fought the medicine and he woke up. It happens sometimes,” the nurse says in a calm voice.

“Why did you sedate him again? Did he give you his consent?!” Emma comes closer to the nurse, but David gently holds her back.

“He was in no position to-”

“So you just drugged him without asking?”

“He needed to be cleaned up and calm down, there was nothing-”

“They didn’t let me in! I should have been there the whole time!”

“He is stable, miss. You’ll be able to see him in a while.”

“After all the damage you’ve done?!”

The nurse sighs. “They’ll take him in room 402. It’s past visitor hours, but one can stay in his room for a while.” She turns around and leaves.

Emma turns on her heel as well and goes outside the room, not looking back at David. She can’t focus on him now, she needs to be with Killian before he panics again.

It takes another twenty minutes, but eventually two nurses appear, rolling Killian’s gurney in the room. Emma stands up and follows them, leaving David outside. Killian is still on IV and has an oxygen mask, but they’ve cleaned him up, his hair still wet, and his expression is peaceful. In the bright hospital light she can see more bruises on his face and a rope burn starting from the edges of his mouth and going around his cheeks and jaw to the back of his neck.

She reaches down and slowly caresses Killian’s forehead. He’s still warm, but not as much as before. She knows she has to care for her own dehydration and injuries, and perhaps take preventative medication as well, but she doesn’t dare leave him now. She sits down on the chair next to his bed and takes his hand in hers. There is a thick bandage around his now free wrist and she feels tears prickle her eyes again, her jaw trembling.

_It’s all over_ , she tells herself, if only to stop the trembling. She needs to be strong for him when he wakes up. She cries silently, focusing on his steady breathing, the most comforting sound she’s heard in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, in case you’re still wondering, this means the heavy whump is over. The bad guys are locked up for good and our poor souls will return to Storybrooke safely. However, we still have to deal with angst and the emotional pain of it all - I’ll try to depict it as well as I can. But if you’re here for the heavy whump, this story is pretty much over for you :) If that’s the case, thank you for staying through the whole story! If not, there will be one more chapter for the aftermath.
> 
> I haven’t done much research on how this whole “rescuing” thing works. I just wanted to focus on Killian panicking and Emma trying to calm him down. Same with the hospital thing - this story is from Emma’s POV so I wanted to focus more on her trying to realize that they were saved and failing at feeling any better. And yeah, I know it would have been cooler if Killian “coincidentally” hadn’t taken a tetanus shot but I just couldn’t fill the story with more things for them to worry about. Don’t forget that, knowing Killian, he won’t want to stay there a moment longer, so I couldn’t prolong his stay there so much.
> 
> Again, thank you all for staying with me :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. There is going to be very mild physical whump here, but we’re also dealing with rape aftermath, so if you’re in for emotional whump both for Killian and for Emma, and are ok with reading about self-harm, then you can go ahead. I’ve done some research on the field, so I hope I get their reactions right - it’s not gonna be an easy path for them. Also yes, sorry, but there is magical healing. I have to stay true to the characters, and with Emma having magic that makes healing so simple, she wouldn’t take a lot of time to make Killian’s wounds disappear… albeit only his physical ones.
> 
> That said, I want to thank you all for you enthusiasm and dedication to this story. As it is my first foray into whumpy fics, it meant the world to me to get positive response. It literally started with simply publishing one chapter I wrote on a whim and it got crazy on Tumblr after that. I appreciate every single review I’ve been given and my words will never be enough to express my appreciation. Just, thank you all :)
> 
> For the purpose of this fic, let’s say it takes place before season 6B.

The first thing Emma feels is Killian’s hand slipping from her own. She wakes up, feeling the terrible kink in her neck and opens her eyes.

As she focuses, she sees that Killian has taken his oxygen mask off and now takes off the butterfly needle on his arm with his teeth. He spits out the thin tube, then puts his hand under the covers and meddles with something on his crotch.

“Hey, wait,” Emma says softly, but is too slow to stop him from pulling his catheter out, causing the sheet over his crotch to stain with urine. Killian looks at the stain and makes a soft whimper, then closes his eyes and starts panting.

“Killian, listen to me,” she says softly.

He shakes his head and covers his closed eyes with his hand.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks.

“Out,” he says simply.

“Yes, you’re out of there. You’re safe, we both are, okay?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Can I touch your arm?” she asks.

“No,” he whispers, still trying to get his breathing under control.

“Okay. Killian, I need you to look at me. I want to try to help you with your breathing, so if you can look at me…”

His only response is to lower his hand to cover his mouth and open his eyes, but his stare is blank.

“Killian?”

He keeps looking at the ceiling without any focus, and Emma realizes he’s probably having a flashback again.

“Killian? Killian, come on!” Her voice raises in volume despite her own exhaustion, but it only causes Killian to breathe harder.

“Killian!” she almost shouts, unconsciously touching his arm, and he immediately jerks it away, making a whimpering sound. Once again he covers his eyes with his hand and starts trembling.

Emma freezes. She has no idea how to deal with this, how to help him, and she’s pretty sure she only made things worse. She sits back on her chair, closes her eyes and rests her head in her hands, waiting for him to calm down. She doesn’t know when he will, so she just waits.

A few minutes later, she hears his breathing go back to normal. He lets out a soft groan and she opens her eyes. There are tear tracks on his temple and nose.

“Killian, it’s over. You are safe, okay?”

He nods and opens his eyes. They are red-rimmed and bleary. He’s still pale, the bruises on his face standing out, and she now notices how his stubble has almost grown into a beard.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice weak and rough. She didn’t expect any different.

“Yeah, and you are getting better. They gave you some medicine for-”

“What happened?” he interrupts her, and his face shows that he barely registered anything but her “Yeah”.

“You don’t remember?”

“I…” he sighs weakly. “They… took me away and… I slept…”

“Yeah. They got you here and I followed you, them.”

“You weren’t in the ambulance,” he whispers, turning his gaze away.

Her mouth goes dry. He wasn’t supposed to remember that. She opens her mouth to say something, but she can’t think of anything to say.

“You weren’t there, you…” He swallows hard. “How did you get here?”

Now it’s her time to swallow hard and wring her hands together. “David brought me here.”

“Your father is here? How?”

“They used a locator potion to find us, since they couldn’t call our phones and the police had barely started searching.”

“What day is it?”

“Early Saturday. It’s still 5 AM, you can go to sleep-”

“We were there since Thursday.”

Emma nods. “And the police didn’t start searching until Friday night, less than twelve hours ago.”

“But your father found us,” he says, sighing.

She nods again.

“Does he know? What… did you tell him?”

She has to lie. She can’t let him know that David knows. She has to, but her response is too slow.

“No, he doesn’t. He didn’t ask…”

She wants to slap herself. _He didn’t ask?_

Killian’s breathing is getting heavy again. “He knows,” he says, brokenly.

Emma opens her mouth to speak again, but nothing comes out. She lowers her gaze and sighs.

“You told him?” his voice raises in volume and pitch, and cracks as a result.

“No. I didn’t tell him. He… he heard it from the doctors, I couldn’t stop them…” It’s not a lie, technically. They did use the words “sexual assault” so he would probably find out anyway.

Killian turns his head away and covers his eyes with his hand again. She can see tears running down his cheeks, though he doesn’t sob.

“Please,” he whispers. “I need a moment.”

Emma feels as if he told her to lift a ton of weight. She’s not only too tired to stand up and walk outside, his rejection hits hard. She was only separated from him against her will and he had a panic attack, and now he’s shooing her away?

This thought springs her to her feet and she steps outside without looking back. David has fallen asleep on a bench right outside Killian’s room, a coffee cup loosely held on his hand.

“Dad?” she only whispers, but he jostles awake.

“Emma,” he blinks a few times before adding, “everything okay?”

“No,” she says simply. “He woke up. He knows that you know that they raped him.” His eyes go wide at her use of that word, but she continues. “He threw me out.”

“Emma, calm down,” he says and stands up.

“No, I can’t calm down!” she whispers with ferocity, trying to get all of her anger out while still conscious of where she is. “I was there with him the whole time, helped him, fed him, comforted him and now he wants me out. Don’t I get to say anything?” She feels her head grow hot with anger, as well as tears run down her cheeks.

David pulls her into his arms and she breathes out hard on his shoulder. His hand goes for the back of her head, and she once again feels the immediate comfort that always comes with the gesture.

“He’s in shock, Emma. Give him some time. I’m sure he appreciates-”

“I need some time too,” she says, her voice breaking by the sobs. “He got angry that you know, as if he’d thought I would never be allowed to talk about what _I_ went through, even if… if…” she falters, her words failing her.

“It’s too early. He may want to share it with someone some day, but it would be his choice. Me not only knowing it, but, seeing it…”

“Oh, no,” she says, pulling away. “He doesn’t know you saw. He just… he asked and I tried to lie, but I failed. He just knows that you heard it from the doctors, so please don’t tell him you saw. He’ll hate you and me and himself…”

“Okay,” he says softly and rubs her shoulders.

A little later the police wants Emma to testify and a therapist tries to talk with Killian.

They tell her there is footage of everything - apparently that camera had been recording the whole time, so she asks what they need a testimony for. Killian is still too shaken to talk about it, let alone in detail as they would probably want it. Eventually, a few more hours are dedicated to her testifying, and even though she’s been on both sides of that procedure in the past, it still wrecks her already tense nerves. She feels exhausted as she walks back to David with their personal effects.

Her coat is too dirty, but their phones are unharmed, as well as Killian’s hook and brace. His clothes, however, are already stained and smell of his release. Emma feels her breakfast threaten to come out at the memory, but once again she swallows it down and folds the bag with his clothes away.

The therapist steps out of Killian’s room, shaking his head at Emma and David.

“Eventually, he’ll have to talk about it with someone,” he tells Emma after she follows him, leaving David behind. “But perhaps it’s too early now, and he will need to fully trust the person…”

“Can’t I be that person?” Emma asks.

“You were there, with him, right?”

Emma nods. “Yeah, the whole time.”

The man sighs. “Perhaps you should consider therapy for yourself as well. Witnessing a traumatic event, especially of someone close to us, can have similar results to actually being the victim of said event.”

Emma blinks and shakes her head. “You mean I may have PTSD as well?”

“There are many different ways the mind responds to a traumatic event. Regardless of its name, I suggest you find an expert to talk to. They have to know how to deal with what you tell them, otherwise you may inadvertently pass on the trauma to them. This is why I believe Mr. Jones should have someone else, besides you, to talk to.”

Emma shivers. Who is he gonna talk to? She already doubts she’ll have the courage to go to Archie herself, who knows the entire town almost personally and talk about it.

“Thank you,” she says blankly. The doctor nods and leaves.

Emma enters the room again. Killian is still on his bed, looking at his chest, his blanket up to his neck, as if he’s trying to cover the bruises from the collar.

“I have to get out of here,” he says, his voice still rough.

“You’re still on antibiotics and fluids-”

“I don’t care.”

Emma sighs. “I know it’s early. I think you may be thinking that you’ll never be able to… but you’ll need to talk to someone.”

“No.”

“Okay. You don’t have to do this now. But it will help you feel better.”

“I only want to get out of here,” he almost whines, closing his eyes shut and bringing the blanket closer to his chin.

“We will. Soon. I promise.” She hasn’t actually thought of that. She was so terrified of anyone finding out what happened that she didn’t want to go back to Storybrooke for now, but it would be the wisest choice. Once they cross the border, Emma can heal him and make all physical signs go away. Then they can spend days upon days in their home and not have any guests for as long as they want. And Killian can be back home and feel safe and protected again. “I will tell the doctors to discharge you as soon as possible.”

Too tired to even do that herself, she only tells David to do it for her. He kisses her forehead, and she feels grateful she only _slightly_ wants to pull away from his touch, and he goes to do as he’s told. Emma returns to the room and rubs at her pained neck.

“You should lie down, love,” Killian says.

“I want to stay next to you.”

He points at the bed next to him. They’ve been lucky enough that his room had only one more bed, and it was empty. “Lie down, please.” She barely hears any plea in his voice but knowing him, she’s sure he’s more worried for her than he is for himself even after what he went through. God, he almost _died_ there, and now he’s worried about her stiff neck.

  
She lies down anyway, and even the hard mattress of the hospital bed feels like a blessing after she had to sleep on floors and chairs. She remembers then how dirty she is, her vomit from earlier slightly visible on her upper legs, but before she even thinks of going to the bathroom again, she falls asleep.

“No! Let me go!”

She hears Killian’s screams from somewhere, and suddenly they’re back in the dance studio, tied down and helpless, until she hears Killian scream again without his mouth moving.

She opens her eyes and immediately looks at her side. Killian is not on the bed, and the bathroom door is open, no light coming out of it. She jumps out of the bed and dizzily rushes out the door. Killian is lying on the floor a few feet away, trembling, with two nurses trying to hold him stable, and David is standing beside them, looking helpless.

“Killian!” Emma shouts. “What happened?” She moves to kneel down next to Killian, whose eyes aren’t focusing anywhere.

“He walked out on his own,” David says. “I- he- I wanted to guide him back but he jolted when I touched hm-”

“You _touched_ him?” Emma tells him. “You didn’t even ask?!”

“He wasn’t… I- I didn’t know…”

Emma turns back to the nurses. One of them has lowered her head so that it’s right in front of Killian’s, and seems to be breathing in sync with him.

“That’s good, keep breathing with me,” she says softly. She keeps inhaling deeply, puffing up her cheeks as she exhales and Killian is looking at her, following her instructions. Eventually, he calms down when they pick him up and put him in a wheelchair, rolling him back into the room.

Emma doesn’t realize she has been watching in shock and sitting on the floor until David touches her shoulder. She flinches a little and looks up at him.

“Emma? Sweetheart, are you okay?”

She looks at him, but feels too numb to respond. She lowers her head and David rubs at her shoulder.

“Miss, are you okay?” one of the nurses asks when they walk out. Emma jolts her head up at her.

“What happened to him?” she asks.

“He had a panic attack. We were informed this may happen, but he’s better now. He just needs to rest, and you need to make sure he feels comfortable. It’s possible he may be triggered by any unwanted physical contact.”

“How did you help him?”

“Uh, basic training,” she says. “Some techniques may work on some people, some may not.”

“Could you teach me to help him?”

The nurse’s mouth falters for a few seconds, and she looks up at David.

“Honey, I think you need to rest. Maybe she can tell you later?”

“But what if it happens again?”

“They’ll be there for us. The doctors said they can discharge Killian by noon, so you can sleep until then and then you can ask her. Just go rest, okay? I’ll be careful next time, if he tries to walk out again.”

Emma wants to argue, but the fatigue settling in her bones is almost pushing her back to the bed, her eyelids drooping. She nods and walks to the room. She takes one last look at David and is surprised to see the same nurse say something to him, too low for Emma to hear.

Emma feels a shiver run down her spine. Maybe she is going to need help herself, after all.

The rest of the day becomes a hazy blur. David brings new clothes for both of them, plain and totally not something they would wear in any case, but Emma doesn’t care. Killian asks Emma to get out as he’s getting dressed, and she does, until he opens the door a little, without looking out, and calls for her. His left arm, back and hips still hurt too much for him to get dressed on his own, it seems. She helps him put on everything, new underwear, pants and jumper, as well as shocks and sneakers. Killian tries to help himself and looks embarrassed the whole time as he hugs his torso with his arms around his oversized jumper, half-sitting on the bed, wincing as he does.

“I’m going to heal you as soon as we cross the town line, okay?” she tells him softly.

He doesn’t respond.

His eyes light up a little when Emma shows him his brace and hook. This time, he puts it on himself, knowing perfectly how loose to tie it so that it will neither hurt him nor slide off. He definitely looks a little better once he clicks the hook in. It’s strange to see him in a jumper and simple jeans with his hook on, but she’s glad he feels a little stronger now.

They discharge him later, and David follows Emma’s advice to wait by the car.

Emma enters the room one last time. Killian is lying on the bed, having covered himself with the blanket. He would normally need to stay more - his infection has not cured fully and he would look less pale if he stayed longer on the IV… but luckily - and strangely, but Emma won’t complain - the STD tests came out negative, so it’s one less thing to worry about. Emma walks slowly in front of him, keeping a safe distance.

“David will drive us back to Storybrooke. Are you ready to go?” she tells him.

He looks at her, worry creasing his features. “Your car?”

“I’m too tired to drive it now. I had him take it to a parking station for now, but we will reach the town faster with the cruiser.”

“He’s with the cruiser?” Killian asks, and his shoulders seem to relax a little.

She nods. “You can sit at the back seat, and I can sit next to you if you want me to.” That way he won’t have to fear David may be staring at him.

They walk slowly to the car, and Emma feels her heart drop when she realizes he’s limping. Killian’s head is held high, and Emma sees that he tries to ignore all the nurses and doctors looking their way as they exit. Good, so much for Killian having an at least decent experience with the hospital after everything.

David barely looks at them as they enter the car, and doesn’t speak to Killian. Killian zips up his new coat and huddles in the corner, not letting Emma touch him. He spends almost the whole journey sleeping and she watching him. He startles awake a few times, then just looks around and falls asleep again.

He wakes up fully on their last stop for fuel and snacks, but doesn’t leave the car, nor does Emma, and he stays silent for the rest of the trip.

When they cross the town border, Emma immediately feels her magic flare up, automatically healing the burns on her wrists and the cut on her palm and almost flashing out of her hands, wanting to heal Killian as well, but he closes his eyes and huddles further in, burying his nose in his jacket. She leans in towards him.

“Would you like me to take us home right now?” she whispers. His eyes still closed, he simply nods. Emma turns to her father. “We’re gonna go home, okay? Tell mom and Henry I’ll be alright and that I love them.” David nods at her through the rear-view mirror, and Emma flicks her wrist.

Her magic develops them and they appear in their house, on the couch in the living room. Killian looks around for a few seconds, and realization dawns on his face. He stands up immediately and tries to limp to the door.

“Wait. Killian,” Emma starts. She walks up next to him but is careful to keep her distance. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” he says.

“Out? Out where? Where do you-”

“My ship. I can’t stay here.” His voice is still quiet and almost sounds flat.

“What? Why?”

“I just want to go to my ship. Please.”

“Okay, okay, wait. We don’t have to walk there.”

He looks at her frustrated. “I…” he starts.

“I’ll just take us there, okay?”

He hesitates, but he nods, his expression still frustrated. Within seconds, they are standing on the deck of his ship. It’s still a little cold outside, the sun setting on the horizon. Killian’s shoulders start shaking a little, and Emma tries to approach him, but he lifts his hand to stop her as he runs to the rail and leans forward, throwing up.

Emma approaches him fast but carefully, making sure he’s registered her proximity to him without touching him. He still shakes a little, looking down where his vomit starts mixing with the water, and sighs. He wipes his mouth with his hand and as he does, he pulls on a wound on his lip and a few drops of blood appear on it.

“Let me heal you,” Emma says.

He closes his eyes, face still down.

“Your wounds are still infected, we would have to go to the hospital again unless I heal you.”

His hand gripping hard on the rail, he nods without opening his eyes.

“I may have to touch you, is that okay?”

There are a few seconds of silence. “Yes,” he whispers finally.

Emma nods, even though Killian can’t see her, and she hovers her hand above his back. Light flares up from her hand as she moves it downward, feeling her magic make work on his wounds. His back relaxes a little at that, as if standing straight was hurting him all this time. She then brings her hand close to his face and sees as the bruises disappear one by one and the few wounds close.

He sighs and opens his eyes. If it weren’t for the slight pale color of his face and his overgrown stubble, no-one would ever suspect something had happened to him.

“Thank you,” he whispers and turns towards her, but looks down at her feet.

“Would you like me to go? Do you want some time alone?”

He shakes his head. “Stay?” he says, softly.

“Okay.” She contemplates asking him if he wants a hug, and she takes a few seconds to try and form the question. She decides to simply open her arms as indication for it. “Can I…” she starts.

Killian closes his eyes, brows furrowed, and thinks for a few seconds before shaking his head. Emma drops her arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says, opening his eyes. “I… I…”

“Don’t worry. Take your time.” Her hand goes to touch his shoulder, but he flinches away. He takes one step back, still looking down. “I just want to lie down,” he says and turns towards his cabin. She follows him quietly, and is surprised when she sees him shut the door to her face, without even saying anything else. She stays outside his door, looking at it in shock, until she hears the faint sounds of him crying from inside.

She rests her hand on it, ready to knock and ask if he wants her in, but she feels her own leftover exhaustion almost take over her. She turns towards the crew quarters and collapses on a bed, hastily wrapping a blanket over her body before she starts quietly crying as well.

She wakes up covered in sweat, both cold from her nightmare and normal from having slept under a wool blanket, a headache threatening to make her head explode and the pillow wet from her tears. She can see that it’s gone dark, and the sound of the waves hitting the hull inform her that the ship is moving. She stands up quickly, seeing black spots for a few moments before she manages to find her balance, and walks up on deck.

The main sail is loose, running on the wind, and as Emma turns, she sees Killian seated on the stairs leading to the upper deck, an old pirate coat thrown over his shoulders. He’s now wearing one of his old shirts - buttoned up to his chin - and pants, though still wearing the sneakers David got him. A small bottle of rum is in his hand, and Emma is glad to see there’s a lot of drink still left in it.

“Hey,” Emma says softly. He looks up at her and smiles. He stands up and walks to her, and she can see that the smile isn’t reaching his eyes.

“Hey, love. I hope you didn’t mind I took the Roger running. You were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you up.”

He talks in such a relaxed and fast way she’s almost taken aback. Is this the same Killian that felt sorry he couldn’t let her hug him before?

“Are you okay?” Emma asks.

He raises one brow. “Of course I am. You healed me, right?” he tries to smile again, but it looks even more weird than before.

Emma bites her lip. He shouldn’t feel so better so fast, right? “Did you sleep well? Did-”

“Aye, perfect,” he says and turns around, stepping up to the helm. She catches the lie immediately. “Maybe it’s time to get you home.”

“Get _me_ home? Aren’t you coming with me?”

He hesitates a little, before his fake smile falls and he drops his gaze to the ground. “I’ll- I’ll stay here for a few days,” he says, his voice noticeably quieter.

“Why?”

He shrugs, trying to put on his smile again. “I’m- I’m just…” he tries to say, but gives up, his shoulders hunching forward. “I’m not going to be a particularly pleasant company,” he says, so low that Emma almost can’t hear him.

She wishes she couldn’t.

“What are you saying?” she says and approaches him at the helm, noticing how he curls into himself a little, his shoulders tense. “You think I’d leave you alone because you’re not… you won’t…”

She can’t finish her sentence, but she knows Killian knows what she was going to say, as he throws his head back and furrows his brows.

“I don’t need your pity, Emma.”

“What?! You think I’m pitying you?”

“I just want some time on my own.”

“That’s not what you said.”

Killian huffs in frustration and turns his gaze away.

“Look, Killian… if you want to stay alone, all you have to do is say so. You can take as much time as you want, and I’ll understand. But don’t think- look at me,” she interrupts herself when she sees that he’s still stubbornly looking elsewhere. She reaches and puts her hand on the helm, right next to where his hook is resting. This catches his attention and he finally turns to her.

“I’ll be there for you,” Emma says. “No matter how hard you think this may be for me, that’s up to me to decide, but I’ll be by your side for as long as you want me.” His face softens a little at her words, but she goes on. “I… I need this too,” she adds, her voice breaking at the end. He opens his mouth, and she can see his lower lip is trembling slightly, so she raises her hand slowly and moves it towards his cheek. When it’s close enough he leans into her touch, and she rubs soft circles with her thumb, finally seeing his shoulders relax. She absent-mindedly thinks that he really needs to trim his beard as he takes half a step away from the helm so that she can wrap her arms around him. It feels like she hasn’t hugged him in years, and she feels the tension she didn’t know she had leave her body.

She notices, however, how he doesn’t tuck his face into the crook of her neck.

As they walk back home, Killian purposefully walks on Emma’s right side, not giving her a chance to switch sides - and she respects that, even though it hurts a little - and his only hand is curled into a fist. They walk slowly, Emma looking at Killian, whose head is up and whips left and right at every junction, and he looks almost ready to fight at any moment.

When they reach their house, Killian freezes when he sees the lights on the living room are on.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s probably my mother, she has a key, remember?” Emma says, sensing that he’s panicking.

“Yeah,” Killian says softly. “Maybe it’s not a good idea-”

“Just this time…” Emma stops him. “Look. They probably just wanted to check in on us.”

“Wouldn’t they call us?”

“Well, they actually did,” Emma says, remembering seeing the fifteen missed calls from her mother from just that day. “But she probably just wants to see we’re okay. I promise I’ll try to get her out as fast as I can, okay?”

Killian’s face is set in an almost angry expression, but he nods and walks next to her to the entrance, tensing up as Emma opens the door.

“Emma! Oh my God!” Snow says as they enter, and runs to her, hugging her close.

“Mom,” Emma says and hugs her back, surprised at how much she actually missed her. Snow lets her go, then immediately goes to Killian and hugs him close, completely oblivious to his nervousness.

He looks up at her, his jaw clenching and his eyes wide open in an almost scared expression as he barely hugs her mother back. Snow pulls away and takes a look at him. Killian drops his gaze and takes a step back, as if hurt by her scrutiny.

“Are you okay? You look better than what David told me. Did Emma heal you?” She talks fast, barely taking a breath as she touches Killian’s arm, pulling her hand away when she feels him tense.

Killian nods, hunching his shoulders and dropping his gaze.

Emma touches Snow’s shoulder. “Mom, I missed you so much. Thank you for coming, but-”

Snow cuts her off by hugging her again. “‘You’ll be okay’? Did you really think I wouldn’t come and check in on you after you both went missing for two days?!” she says, voice still strained and almost broken with sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Emma says softly. “But we’re really okay, see? And we were tired, and we… we wanted some time on our own. Did Dad tell you…”

“He did tell me that you needed some time, but Emma, I’m your mother.” Snow pulls back again, caressing Emma’s hair as she speaks, ”And you wouldn’t answer your phone… What did you expect me to do?”

“Okay, okay,” Emma says. “But we’re really tired. I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone.”

Snow nods. “Call me if you need anything, okay? And call me when you wake up tomorrow.”

Emma thinks that the question is if they’ll even sleep at all, but only nods at her mother. Snow turns to Killian, nodding at him as well as she reaches for her coat.

“Goodnight, and sleep well. If you need anything, really-”

“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll be okay.”

Snow nods one last time, and looks at Emma, then at Killian, worry creasing her face at him not looking back up since she hugged him, but she walks out the door anyway.

Killian sighs heavily once the door closes and rubs his forehead.

“So that went well,” he says. “Is she gonna be here all the time?”

“I could ask her to give me the key back, but she was just worried.”

“She’s your mother. She would worry about you. It’s me I don’t need her to worry about.”

“I don’t think she knows.”

“She said your father talked to her.”

“And he told her to stay away, and she didn’t, probably because she doesn’t have all the information. If she did she wouldn’t have touched you like that.”

Killian lets out a sigh. “You think she doesn’t know?”

“I told Dad to not tell anyone anything. She probably knew you were injured but I think that’s all she knew… but eventually, she will find out.”

His head jerks up and his eyes go wide. “What? How?”

“I don’t think David will be able to keep that from her for too long… or maybe I won’t.”

“Why would you do that?” His voice is suddenly really small. “I think you know I don’t want the others to know.”

“But _I_ will need to talk to someone! _You_ will need to talk to someone!”

He shrugs, trying to appear calm. “Why?”

“Because it was hard. And it will keep being hard unless we do something… unless we talk about it. To them, to Archie…”

“I’m not going to tell the cricket about what… what they did to me.” His voice drops in volume at the last words.

Emma closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before she opens them again. “Killian… you’ll have to. You may want to pretend you’ll get over it, but you’ll have to do it if you actually want to feel better.”

Killian huffs out, his brows furrowing in anger. “You know me. I’ve told you of my past. You know what that man got out of me was true. It wasn’t the first time, Emma. I’ll get over it.”

“You don’t have to fight it on your own. I can help you. Archie can help you.” She feels so tired and the last thing she wants to do is fight with him over this, over anything at that point.

“If you brought me here just to argue with me, I’m far off better on my ship. This is my problem to work with.”

“Wait, wait. I’m sorry. Don’t go yet.” She rubs her temples with her fingers, trying to think what’s best to do. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset. Give me a chance and I promise you, no-one will bother you here, okay? I’ll put a magic shield around the house if I have to so nobody can harm us, okay?”

Killian nods, and looks down for a few seconds before he turns to the stairs. Emma collapses on the couch, feeling exhausted and shaken. Things will be really hard if he continues to refuse therapy… she tells herself she might not need it since she wasn’t the one being assaulted - and that word feels bitter even thinking about it - but Killian certainly will.

She stays there for a few moments before she walks up to the bedroom too. She sees Killian walk out of it, a sheet thrown over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Emma says.

Killian turns to her, his expression sheepish. “I… I’m not sleeping with you tonight.” He tries to make his voice sound stable and sure, but he fails.

“Why?” _Who is going to soothe each other’s nightmares_ , she thinks.

He shakes his head, not looking at her. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.” Without another word, he turns around and goes for the guest room, shutting the door behind him. Emma stays frozen right where she is for almost a minute, trying to comprehend what just happened.

He just refused getting any help from her.

He doesn’t want to sleep with her-

No. She won’t let herself fall into that pit. She walks to the guest room and taps softly at the door.

“Hey, you don’t have to say anything. It’s just, if you want to come to our bed at any time, just come, okay? Good night.”

She stays there for a few moments, both waiting and doubting he’ll respond. Eventually, she walks back to their bedroom.

She takes a shower, finally relieved to take all of the filth of the past few days off of her, and she lies on their bed. Her body almost sings as she touches the soft mattress, but she’s way too vigil to fall asleep right now. She’s left her door open, almost anticipating to hear Killian scream in his sleep - or while awake.

She sits up on the bed and opens her laptop. Opening up Google, she takes a few deep breaths as she pushes herself to type down the words she needs to. She feels as if the whole town is watching her somehow, immediately learning Killian’s secret, or as if Killian is watching her, judging her and thinking she’s pitying him, or these men watching her…

A tear slips down her cheek, and she wipes it away. She takes a few more breaths, trying to calm herself down. She needs to do this. She looks back at her screen and types “How to help rape survivors” on the search bar.

She spends the next hour searching and looking up advice and personal experiences. She makes a mental note of the most important ones, trying to will herself to remember them when she’ll deal with Killian the next day, or for the days to come.

However, she can’t find information for what to do with her situation - she doesn’t even know how to search for or even how to call her own situation.

She will definitely need to see Archie.

She wakes up a few hours later, sprawled over on the bed, her laptop on sleep mode and her hair dry. She didn’t even realize when she fell asleep, and shit, she promised herself she would look out for Killian.

She walks up to his room and contemplates opening the door. If he’s not asleep, she’ll scare him, and if he is, she may scare him anyway, and in any case she’ll be disrespecting his privacy, and the internet informed her about how important that is. She almost can’t believe there’s a chance she may see Killian wrapped in a blanket around a blanket fort. She never expected it, and it shakes her to think how much broken Killian would be if he resorted to this…

Her only fear is that she may not be strong enough to help him herself.

The days pass, and David gives Emma a few days off, and a few more after that, making Emma feel a little guilty - he still has a baby son to care for. But David insists, and frankly, she doesn’t mind staying at home, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling.

She has nightmares, and so does Killian. Killian also has flashbacks, though Emma has only had two. She knew how to help him out of his and after, but Killian wasn’t even there when Emma had hers. They made her whole day terrible and she didn’t even have the heart to tell Killian about them.

After about two weeks during which Emma persuades herself and Killian to trust into the doctor-patient confidentiality, she visits Archie. It’s hard, and her talking triggers a minor flashback, this time with Archie taking part in it. She cries a lot, but he is patient and professional. She walks out of it feeling emotionally exhausted, with less hope she can get over it than what she had when she walked in. But Archie is hopeful.

When she comes home that evening, she finds Killian slouched on the sofa, apparently waiting for her, a glass of rum in his hand.

“Hey, everything okay?” she says, her voice rough from her crying.

“You talked to him,” Killian says. It’s not a question.

Emma nods. “I needed to. He won’t tell anyone. We talked about this.”

He takes one sip from his drink. “How am I going to look at him now, if I see him in public?”

Emma doesn’t comment that he’s barely gone out these weeks, not even to his ship. “He’ll be okay. He won’t tell anyone and he won’t judge.”

Killian just huffs and keeps drinking the whole night through. Emma wakes up next morning to find him passed out by the toilet, his vomit stinking from inside the bowl. She flushes the toilet and cleans both the air and Killian’s stained shirt with her magic before it all triggers a flashback.

As the days go by, she realizes everything is harder than she’d imagined. Killian sometimes doesn’t let her comfort him after having a flashback or a panic attack, he still sleeps in the guest room and locks himself in it whenever someone makes a visit - Snow, Henry, even David - and he even gets aggressive sometimes, shutting doors with force and shouting at her for the most ridiculous reasons. She almost always finds him wrapped in his blanket after that. Sometimes he lets her hold him, other times he just throws her out before she can even say anything.

And if that wasn’t enough, she has her own issues to work with. Killian made her promise to not tell anyone about what happened, so the only person she can talk to besides Archie is David, but it almost always makes him uncomfortable when she describes her nightmares or flashbacks. She even has flashbacks in front of David, and he’s forced to learn how to treat those as well. But she can’t tell him everything lest her trauma becomes his trauma. And it’s been almost a month after the incident and Killian won’t talk to Archie and everything sucks.

One day, Emma comes home from work, and the first thing she sees is Killian run up the stairs, his steps heavy and hasty, and Snow standing up from the table, walking slowly towards the stairs, almost shocked.

“What happened?” Emma says.

“I don’t know…” Snow says, her voice weak, almost whispering. “He looked like he was out, as if he wasn’t hearing me, and I touched him, and he screamed… and…”

“A flashback…” Emma whispers.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, Emma, I didn’t know-”

“Please, Mom, you have to leave. Please, he’ll need to know you’re not here, so…”

“Okay, okay,” Snow says, nodding, though tears are forming in her eyes. “I’m so sorry-” she whispers.

“I know, I know, just go.” Emma can feel her knees start shaking. He wasn’t supposed to… he didn’t _want_ to be seen like this to someone else. It was bound to happen at some point, even with how he’s almost isolated himself the past month but still…

She runs up the stairs and follows Killian’s muffled sobs to the bathroom. She knocks on the door.

“Killian, my mother is gone. I’m sorry she came in like this.”

She can hear him cry still.

“Are you still having a flashback?”

“No,” he says in a ragged voice, and keeps sobbing afterwards.

She repeats her post-flashback mantra. “It’s okay now, you’re safe. It’s over.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps crying.

“Can I come in?”

She hears movement, then the door being unlocked and Killian appearing behind it. He looks almost ashen white, his eyes are red and there are tear tracks on his face, his hair is a mess and his left arm is hidden behind his back. He tries to move past Emma but she notices the way he keeps his arm out of her view, then turns to the bathroom to see a few drops of blood on the floor.

“Killian, wait,” she says as calm as she can. She walks to him slowly and puts on an understanding face even as panic starts to creep up in her. “Did you cut yourself?”

_Careful, Emma. Don’t judge, don’t berate him, don’t shout, don’t scare him away._

He doesn’t respond, his back to her and his arm hidden from her.

“I just want to help you. I’m not going to judge or scream at you. Just tell me if you cut yourself.”

He turns around and there are new tears running from his eyes, as he lifts up his sleeve to reveal four skin-deep slashes on the inside of his left arm.

She swallows hard. She feels her body go numb from the panic, but she forces herself to speak. “Okay. Thank you for showing me.” She looks up at him and she can see he’s surprised - he definitely didn’t expect this kind of reaction. “Would you like me to heal them?” she asks.

Killian shakes his head, apparently not trusting his voice right now, and the movement causes another tear to slip from his eye. He covers his arm with the sleeve again.

“Okay, okay,” Emma says. “I’m here if you want to talk.”

Killian nods and goes to the guest room, closing the door behind him. Emma almost runs to the bedroom and lets out the shaky breath she was holding. Her arms start shaking as she sits down on the bed, and she feels tears prickle her eyes. She read that it was common for rape survivors to self-harm, but actually seeing it was way worse than she thought it would be.

She had seen teens harm themselves in foster homes, and they were always scolded by the parents, or even some social workers. There had been times she’d contemplated cutting herself as well, but she never went so far as to actually do it - and she also never had a friend amongst those who did it. Seeing it now in Killian, the man she loves…

She lets herself break down and cry. She’ll need her strength when - hopefully, _when_ \- Killian decides to talk to her about it.

And it’s only a few hours later that he does. Emma is sitting on the couch, a cup of hot chocolate warming her hands, when Killian walks down the stairs to her.

“Hey,” he tells her. “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier.”

“It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

She sighs. “No, actually. But what I mean is that I understand. It’s normal for you to feel this way, but if you want to talk about it…”

He says nothing, simply sits down next to her on the couch. She offers him her cup, and he takes it with a small smile, taking a sip from it.

“No rum this time?” he says as he returns it to her.

Emma smiles a little. There. Casual conversation, nothing’s really changed, you can talk to me.

“I don’t know what drove me to do this,” he says in a soft voice. “I wasn’t even thinking, I just was so upset and angry… Your mother saw me having a flashback, and I came out of it a little more violently than I’m used to, and it just… scared me. And I ran upstairs, trying to find an exit for these emotions… I don’t even know what I was thinking.” He speaks slow, having a hard time finding his words as his hand toys with his hook. He takes deep breaths between phrases and keeps looking down as he does.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Killian.”

“You weren’t scared?”

Emma hesitates. “I… was, a little, at first. But it’s over now, and what matters right now is you. Thank you for letting me know.” She extends her hand, and she waits for him to nod before she touches his arm - the right one, as it’s the one closest to her.

“So you’re not going to be angry at me?”

“No, but that’s not the point. I want to help you find a way out of this. Do you want to find a way out of this?”

He hesitates, still looking down.

“I know it may seem hard to believe right now, but you can get over this. You can help yourself find other ways to vent out your emotions, and I can help you with that. I’ll be here for you.”

“And what about you? Don’t you need to find your own ways to deal with your problems… and the ones I cause you?”

Emma smiles. “I talk to Archie. He helps.”

Killian finally turns to her, his own expression fallen. “Do you really believe he can help me?”

Emma nods. She merely _hopes_ those two can work together, otherwise they would have to find another therapist… out of town and without any knowledge about magic and any understanding about Killian’s ridiculously old age.

“So, can I go tomorrow?” he says, voice low.

“I’ll try to settle for an appointment as soon as possible.”

Eventually, the appointment is set for three days later, and by the time Killian has to go, he’s completely unwilling to do so.

“Killian, come on,” Emma tells him through the closed door.

“Leave me alone, Emma.”

Emma rests her forehead on the door, starting to feel more and more hopeless. She misses him… misses his touch, his comfort, his strength, and trying to build him up alongside with her own self with only David’s help turns out to be a true labor.

“We have to go,” she insists.

“I told you I don’t want to go!” He sounds genuinely angry, nothing alike to a petulant child.

“You didn’t tell me why.”

“Because he’s not going to help me. He doesn’t know how.”

“You don’t know that. And he’s helping me.”

“That’s because your case is different.”

Emma sighs. “He knows how to work around different cases. Please, Killian, give him a try,” she says, for the millionth time this month.

It takes a few more minutes, but he finally opens the door. They walk to Archie’s office, Killian seeming ready to turn around and leave at any given moment. Eventually, she makes sure he enters the office, then goes across the road to Granny’s, watching at the window as she waits for him to come out.

About forty minutes later, he walks out, head down and hand toying with his hook. She’d told him she would wait for him at Granny’s, but when he exits he immediately turns towards the docks. Emma runs out to him, but before she can approach him, he turns to her, gives her a sad expression as he shakes his head and turns back to the road. He pulls the collar of his jacket up and keeps walking away from her.

She contemplates going to Archie and ask what happened. She almost walks up the stairs to his office, but turns around when she thinks she has to give Killian the chance to tell her on his own.

She waits for him, even after it starts going dark. That’s when she receives a message from Killian telling her that he’s okay and to not wait for him, as he’ll be late. She really tries to follow his lead, but eventually she falls asleep on the couch and jolts awake when Killian enters.

“You’re still here,” Killian says, an expression of slight surprise on his face.

“Yeah, well. I fell asleep. You okay?” she says, blearily.

He simply nods, takes off his coat and boots and walks upstairs without another word.

“Do you want to talk?” she says, but he doesn’t say a word.

Her nightmares are a bit worse this time, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she can hear him cry through his closed door.

In the morning, she pushes him to talk during breakfast.

“So, anything new?”

Killian looks at her bitterly.

“Do you want to talk about yesterday?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You don’t have to be so mysterious about it.”

“I’m not being mysterious,” he says matter-of-factly as he places a handful of marmalade on his bread. “Nothing happened, I didn’t utter a word in the full forty-three minutes I was in there. He kept asking me questions, he kept trying to get me to talk, and I couldn’t say a thing. He got bored, told me we can try again next time and dutifully shooed me out of his office before I could waste even more of his time.”

Emma opens her mouth to speak, but Killian interrupts her.

“And don’t say it’s fine, because it’s not.”

“I didn’t expect you to have all your problems solved by one session, Killian.”

“Aye, I did expect for  _something_ to happen. Anything.”

“It’s alrgi- ugh. Look, it’s normal. Not everyone accepts therapy immediately, especially if they’ve never had before. All you need to do is try again.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“You didn’t even get to see if it helped!”

“It didn’t!”

“Well, you didn’t say anything, did you? It gets two to have a therapy. You can’t be helped if you don’t talk.”

Killian puts his bread down, covering his eyes with his hand. “How am I supposed to open up to him? What am I supposed to tell him?”

“The truth. In whatever way you want to.”

He lets out a shaky sigh. “It’s not that easy, Emma…”

“I know. And I doubt it’s easier for you than it’s been for me. So it really is okay if you were scared in there.”

At that, the dam breaks and Killian bursts out in sobs. He leans forward and cries, so Emma brings her chair closer and lets his head rest on her shoulder. She rubs his back and the nape of his neck, letting him cry out his frustration and pain. They both lose their appetite after that, and Killian barely looks any better, but at least he let that out.

That same evening, as Emma thinks about how they haven’t even kissed all that time, Killian promises her he’ll try for another session.

“Don’t promise it to me,” she tries to say, but he’s already up the stairs. Emma smiles at his determination.

She realizes how much she’s missed that.

A few days pass, with less flashbacks and panic attacks from Killian’s side, and the day comes for the second session. Emma has to work that day, and David is wracked with guilt for giving her so much to do when he knows that Killian needs her, but she reassures him, in an effort to reassure herself, that they’ll both be fine.

Killian hasn’t really stopped cutting himself, but at least he’s not full-on suicidal, and Emma tries to find some consolation in that. A few times he’d let her heal his cuts, but other times he barely even spoke about it.

It’s late evening when he returns, and Emma is cooking at the time. She turns around to take a good look at him.

“Hi,” he says softly. He looks tired.

“Hi yourself,” she says and approaches him a little, hands on her back pockets, hoping that the eggs won’t burn during the few seconds she’ll leave them unattended. She smiles a little, and he tries to smile back, but it falls too soon. Emma keeps her smile up.

“Did you talk?” she asks.

“Aye, I did.”

Emma feels relief flood in her. She takes a big breath. “How do you feel?”

He doesn’t speak. He only raises his eyes to her and approaches her slowly. Emma already feels her pulse raise, but she stays put and welcoming for him. He raises his hand and caresses her cheek softly. She doesn’t know if she wants to close her eyes and lean into the touch or keep them open and make sure he’s okay through it all.

He takes a few deep breaths, then leans forward and kisses her. She kisses back, careful to not make the kiss deeper than Killian wants. It lasts only a few seconds, and his lips are tense as if he’s pushing himself to kiss her, until he pulls back and lets out a shaky breath on her lips. His face is crestfallen as he steps back and without another word turns to the stairs.

Emma stays frozen for a few moments, until the smell of burnt eggs reaches her nostrils.

He kissed her, and he apparently hated it.

So much for her appetite.

She doesn’t see him for the rest of the night, and she wakes up next morning to find he left a note saying he’ll be on his ship, wanting to stay alone. She texts him an “ok” before she sits back on the couch and waits for the job-free day to pass.

The next days are awkward. He comes back but they barely speak to each other, until Killian decides to go for another session two weeks after his second one. That day he visits Emma at the station right before his appointment. He doesn’t stay long, he just gives her a daffodil and as he says goodbye, Emma sitting at her desk, he leans forward and kisses her head.

Emma looks at the flower and tears prickle her eyes. She looks up to see David smiling at her through the other office door.

“I think he’s really starting to get better,” she says with a smile as her tears fall.

She’s home trying to find a funny film without any harsh jokes that may trigger her when Killian returns. He looks tired again, but not as much as the previous time. He gives her a sad smile and walks to her. Without saying anything, he leans forward again and kisses her. Emma has to hold back with all her power to not attack him with kisses, but luckily the kiss is just soft, short and _real_. He pulls back before it manages to make him uncomfortable. Still smiling, he goes upstairs to change into his pyjamas and they watch Monsters, Inc.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

He doesn’t kiss her every day after that. He’s almost stopped cutting himself, but he still has flashbacks now and then, as does she. He has learnt how to treat her flashbacks too, though he very rarely hugs her after. They learn what triggers each other’s flashbacks and try to keep them away.

One day he comes back from the docks with red-rimmed eyes.

“Hey,” Emma says as she notices. “Everything okay?”

“Aye, mostly.”

“You had a flashback?”

Killian nods. “In front of your father.”

Emma swallows hard. He’s only had flashbacks in front of her and Archie - and that one time in front of Snow - and she hasn’t told anyone but David that his keep coming.

“Can you tell me why?”

“I was just walking around, until I saw David looking around the place. He told me someone had informed him of an abandoned dog there and he went searching… I followed him and we found the dog... “ He sighs and closes his eyes. “Her leash was tied so tight around a cleat on the dock she could barely move, and…”

Emma nods, coming close enough to him to touch him but not enough to scare him. “That’s enough, if you want to stop there…”

He rubs his face with his hand. “I collapsed right there, I almost had a panic attack. David released the dog and then brought me back. I came to and then asked him why he let the dog go first… and he told me that… that he saw… he saw me, us, in that- that… room…”

He doesn’t seem angry, or upset, just too tired to search for the words. “Killian, you don’t have to push yourself-”

“Did you know? Did he tell you that he saw us?”

His tone is neither demanding nor accusing, but she still swallows hard before she nods.

To her surprise, he simply nods back. “You didn’t tell me…”

“I was hoping David would tell you on his own time, if he thought it could help you.”

He sighs and nods again. “It’s alright. I understand. He said the same thing, he didn’t even mention you, and… I spoke to him, about it,” he says sheepishly, but a small smile pulls up the corner of his lips.

Emma raises her eyebrows, a small smile forming on her lips as well. “You did? How did it feel?”

“Hard, at first, but I think it helped. I would never believe it would help. I was so scared...” he lets out a laugh as a tear slips down his cheek and he wipes it away. Emma steps forward, and with only slight hesitation - to Emma, that is a victory - he lets her embrace him.

Emma stays up all night from her anxiety at his response to all this, and he sleeps with his door open. He doesn’t cry that night.

They keep going to their sessions. About four months after the incident, Killian has completely stopped cutting and starts spending more time with David outside the house and Emma’s flashbacks are reduced to a minimum.

They kiss almost every day, though only quick pecks and cheek kisses, and Emma is starting to feel upset by how long it’s taking him to come sleep with her in their bed. She knew that there was a high chance Killian will be less willing to have sex but the fact that he doesn’t even want to sleep next to her is worrying her.

And then comes the day where they’re kissing in the kitchen after a delicious breakfast they made together, and it turns deeper and deeper by the moment, until Emma finds herself toying with Killian’s zipper. He feels her touch and almost thrusts forward. Emma breaks the kiss to look at him.

“Are you sure?” she says.

He takes one moment to answer, but eventually he just nods. Emma locks the door with her magic and lowers her pants, then goes for Killian’s zipper. Killian leans forward and kisses her as she opens it, as if he’s trying to stop her from seeing it. Eventually, she feels his erection free from his pants, but pulls her hands back and opens her legs for him.

It’s up to him to set the pace. She’s still kissing him when she feels his erection touch her sensitive area, and she lets out a deep moan. Her breath and heartbeat go faster as she keeps reminding herself to not push Killian. Killian bends his head and starts kissing Emma’s neck, and another moan escapes her. Then he enters her, and it’s like both of them are struck by the same current at the same time. She feels panic rise in her and sees Killian’s shoulders start to shake. He pulls back immediately, his member having gone flaccid in a matter of _seconds_ , then he zips up his pants.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in a shaky voice before running upstairs.

Emma puts on her own clothes, her previous panic turning into worry. She realizes it’s probably not only him who’s slightly scared by the idea of having sex, and she feels her limbs go numb at her ignorance on how to fix this. She hasn’t spoken to Archie about that yet… and she feels way too insecure to talk about it. How do they find a way to have sex after being forced to do so while being kept captive?

She tries to not think how it’s already been four months since then.

And if all that wasn’t enough, that same night they fall asleep on the couch as they watch TV. Emma wakes up in the middle of the night and looks at the screen… and there’s a scene of a man being raped. Her eyes wide, she turns to Killian. He looks frozen, as if unable to pull his eyes away from the screen, his mouth open and the remote control in his hand. Emma grabs it and turns the TV off, but Killian keeps looking at the screen frozen.

“Killian… that wasn’t real…”

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even turn his head away. A tear slips down his cheek.

“Killian?”

He doesn’t respond, only his head starts bowing down so slowly she almost misses the movement.

“Are you having a flashback?”

Still no response. She tries, again and again, but he stays unresponsive for a long time, Emma doesn’t count how long it’s been, but when he eventually comes back, he starts crying. Emma caresses the nape of his neck, and tugs ever so slightly but it’s enough for Killian to rest his head on her shoulder.

“Why would they show this? Why would they… in that way?”

“I don’t know. It’s late, they don’t really care about who watches that…”

Emma brushes her fingers through his hair as he cries, the touch comforting her as well as she tries to calm down herself after the sight. It was too real, too real… But Killian is here now, and they’re safe, and they’re getting better.

They fall asleep on the couch that night, hugging each other close. Emma wakes up first the next morning, and she spots Killian is almost shocked to find himself there with her, but he quickly relaxes in her embrace.

However, as Emma stands up to make them some breakfast, Killian walks to the TV and kicks it hard, shattering the screen and shouting as he falls to his knees and cries again.

She could fix it with her magic but she cares less about watching any show right now.

A few days later the incident is forgotten and the TV repaired, but they don’t turn it on at all, even after Emma shows Killian the last scene from that same episode they watched, showing that same man hugging the woman he loves. Killian smiles sadly at that.

“I wonder how long it will take me to get there,” he confesses.

She keeps track of their sessions. They’re both getting better, Emma faster than Killian does, but it’s still hard. All the flashbacks, completely random words and images that can bring any of them down to their knees, their nightmares, and Killian’s almost stubborn insistence to sleep away from her…

Until one day he knocks on her door as she’s preparing for bed. He was out all day again after his session, and she mostly stayed home so he probably knows she’s not that tired…

“Can I sleep with you?” he asks, plain and simple.

Emma sighs in relief despite herself. She knows she shouldn’t make such a big show out of his successful steps so to not inadvertently encourage him to push himself, but this time she can’t help herself.

“Yeah,” she says.

Her doubts of him not wanting sex disappear as soon as he lies down on the bed and kisses her deep and passionately. As he kisses her, he unbuttons his shirt and moves his hand under her tank top.

“Are you sure? Really sure?” Emma asks, breaking the kiss a little.

Killian’s moan sounding inside her mouth is all she needs to let herself go. They make love to each other, and Killian holds nothing back as he pleases her in any way he can. Emma barely holds back her “I missed you”s every time she calls out his name, every time his erection thrusts in and it makes her see stars.

He collapses on her when he finishes, their naked bodies touching each other in every spot.

“I love you, Emma,” Killian whispers in her ear.

“I love you too,” she says back, even more breathless than him.

“I’m sorry it took so long to come back to you.”

She’s been hating hearing those words from him all these months, but this time she simply understands. She brushes her fingers through his hair and says, “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”

“I was so scared,” he admits in a small voice. “So scared that I would be too broken to ever make love to you again, to ever truly be there for you…”

“You made it, Killian.” She shifts a little, so that she can see his face.

“Aye, this time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again soon.”

“I know,” she says, kissing his cheek. “I know, and I understand.”

They both know they have a long and hard road ahead of them. The pain isn’t going to go away that easily, and they will need more time to heal fully.

But they will. And now they hope and trust in each other to help make their healing as smooth as possible.

They fall asleep with smiles on their faces, their bodies tangled together.


End file.
